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7 

The Overland Roztte to the Pacific^ 



A REPORT 



CONDITION, CAPACITY AND RESOURCES 



UNION PACIFIC 



CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILWAYS. 



BY 

E. H. DERBY, OF BOSTON. 



October^ 1S69. 



\ 

X 



BOSTON: 
LEE & SHEPARD, No. 149 WASHINGTON STREET. 

1869. 



.34-^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, 

bt e. h. derby, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Wbioht & Potter, Printers, 79 Milk Street 



Messes. Blake Bbos. & Co., 

Bankers of Boston and New York: 

Gentlemen: — At your suggestion, and through the kind per- 
mission of the President and Directors of the Union Pacific and 
Central Pacific Raih-oad Corporations, I have made inspection of 
their present condition, resources and capacity, and I have pleasure 
in stating that I have traversed the whole line of railways to and 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, and carefully examined 
them on my way, travelling often on the rear platform, and stoj)ping 
at the more important stations. 

As some of the trade of Boston with the West now passes over 
the Vermont Central and a part of the Grand Trunk, I deemed it 
advisable to examine its line between Montreal and Detroit, and to 
pass over the Great Western, Michigan Central and Chicago and 
Northwestern Railways, on my way out, and to take the Hannibal 
and St. Joseph, C. B. and Quincy, Illinois Central, Great Western, 
and New York Central Lines on my return, and to draw parallels 
between some of them and the Pacific Lines. My investigations 
have been aided by the efficient staff you have given me, in Lord 
Cecil, from England, who has made English roads and engines a 
study, and has travelled much of the distance on the engines, and 
Mr. F. B. Blake, of the London House of Pixley, Abell, Langley 
and Blake, who accompanied me on the trip. 

As other duties may deter me from making a more elaborate 
report, I submit to you a diary of our trip and the conclusions at 
which I have arrived. 

I congratulate you and the country upon the despatch with which 
the Overland Railway has been finished, and the great expansion of 
business which must attend the completion of the Line. ■ 

Judiciously managed, with the telegraph on one hand and the 
express business on the other, and its sources of traffic well devel- 
oped, I feel confident it will meet the hopes of its projectors and 
the expectations of the public. , 

Very respectfully, 

E. H. DERBY. 
Boston, Oct. 14th, 1869. 



The Overland Route to tlie Pacific. 



On the evening of August 9th, 1869, 1 left Boston for Mon- 
treal, accompanied by Mr. F. B. Blake. Our course is north- 
erly by the Vermont Central Railway to the Grand Trunk 
at Montreal, from which point we propose to run to 'Chicago, 
following the course of the new interchangeable cars. We 
find a sleeping-car at the station, and after a pleasant night's 
run, awake the next morning at St. Albans. 

August lOtli. 

We find a spacious and elegant station and a breakfast at St. 
Albans. 

The train brings us to Montreal by 10, A. M., and we devote 
the day to the inspection of the tracks and stations of the Grand 
Trunk Railway. We call on Mr. Brydges and confer with the 
leading merchants of Canada, who give us a cordial reception, 
and inform us that trade is improving and exports and imports 
are larger than they were last year. I am happy to notice a 
change in the Grand Trunk since the summer of 1868. Its 
crippled cars have disappeared, and its track has improved, but 
it lacks a suitable depot at 'Montreal and a proper connection 
with tide-water. This deficiency must greatly impair its power 
to compete with steamers on the St. Lawrence. We learn, too, 
that the sections east -of the river require renewal.* Mr. 
Brydges appreciates the importance of the Boston traffic, which 

* See Appendix. 



6 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

will be increased by branches now in progress to connect the 
Granil Trunk willi lines through the Passumpsic and Amonoosac 
Valleys. Me considers the changeable cars a decided success. 
We dine with friends at the Club Ilouse. 

Wednesday, August 11th. 

Wc leave Montreal at eight o'clock, A. M., for Toronto, and 
examine the line frohi the rear platform. Our average speed is 
twenty-one miles per hour, the location wide, the road direct, 
level and well ballasted, the bridges substantial, the depots of 
stone, with plats of flowers near them, but the iron, for at least a 
third of tlic way, is rough, and requires renewal. The country, 
until we pass Ogdensburg, is cold, fiat and uninviting ; the crops 
of oats and other grain backward ; harvest not begun. As wc 
pass Prescott the country improves, and we see fields of wheat 
aiKl barley. Most of the crops must cross the road to reach the 
river. 

The harvest here is beginning. The country is almost 
denuded of timber, but we notice piles of wood in the open air, 
with few or no wood-sheds to keep the wood dry, as on our 
American lines. 

"We notice few indications of local freight, but pass several 
freight trains, and reach Toronto, 333 miles from Montreal, at 
12.40, A. ]\I., just as a dinner-party, given to Sir Francis Hinckes, 
is dissohiug, and we pass the guests on our way to our 
chambers. Their speeches, reported the next morn, favor the 
idea of independence, guaranteed by France and tiie United 
States. Do they think that Louia Napoleon may claim Quebec 
and the United States Ontario, when England retires, as she 
probably will, from this continent? 

Thursday, August 12th. 

We walk to the rulling-mill, so much discussed at the meet- 
ings of tiic Grand Trunk Railway Company, and from which 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 7 

came several car loads of rails that passed us yesterday ; but the 
fires are out, and work suspended. We observe, however, many 
piles of splintered rails ready for the furnace. 

As no train goes westerly until 11 o'clock, A. M., we walk 
with a friend, who pilots us tlirough Toronto, a city of sixty 
thousand people, and notice its good streets, substantial structures 
and English aspect. In the markets we find abundance, and 
hear that contracts may be made by the year for the best pieces 
of beef, mutton and veal for ten cents the pound. We observe 
also, frequent notices of the Great Western line, which has been 
Americanized, and notice that its station is more spacious and 
attractive than that of the Grand Trunk. 

The buildings of the Grand Trunk are chiefly of wood, and 
compared with those of the Great Western, are less attractive. 
At 11 o'clock, xV. M., we start from the station with three cars and 
a hundred passengers, chiefly local, for they diminish as we pro- 
ceed, and in seven hours we make Sarnia, above Detroit, leaving 
the oil wells to the left and their freight to the Great Western. 

The road and the speed liave both improved from yesterday, 
although the gradients rise to sixty feet. Some twenty miles 
require new iron. A little ballast is also wanted, but twenty 
thousand pounds would put the road in good condition ; indeed, 
I am satisfied that a hundred and fifty tliousand pounds judi- 
ciously expended between Montreal and Sarnia, on this, the best 
half of the Grand Trunk, would carry it above the level of our 
American lines, and enable trains to run thirty-five miles per 
hour and earn good dividends. The capacity of this line has 
been underrated, and it is deeply to be regretted that Mr. 
Brydges has not the means at his disposal to rival, if not sur- 
pass, the lines on the opposite side of the great lakes and river. 

The location is a hundred feet in width, the bridges excellent, 
the banks well sloped and sodded. TIic ties, however, are of 
inferior wood, (oak, elm and hemlock,) and on the average, last 
but five years. We should discard the hemlock. The forests 



8 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

have been felled for fifty feet on each side of the line. Five 
section men keep eiglit miles in repair, and the line is very 
straight and level for long distances. We pass many piles of 
wood, but notice but few sheds for sawed wood, which in the 
moist climate of Canada must lead to a loss of fuel. We pass 
through a fine country, well cultivated, especially in the Ger- 
man towns of Guelph, Berlin, Breslau and Baden, where we 
notice many large stone barns and granaries. These are towns 
of three to eight thousand people, and remind me of Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania. There are men and women in the field. We 
see a few mowing and reaping machines, and notice fields of 
wheat, barley, oats, pease, flax and potatoes. Mr. Eliott, an 
mtelligent Canadian, tells us that last year the crops were thirty 
per cent, below an average, this year twenty per cent, above 
one ; that this season wheat returns twenty -eight, barley thirty- 
five, pease thirty-five, and oats fifty bushels to the acre, and will 
afford a large surplus for exportation. This will flow to the 
railway. Wheat now sells for one dollar and ten cents, barley 
for seventy cents, and oats for forty cents per bushel. The 
repeal of the Treaty of Reciprocity depressed prices a fifth. 

As respects independence, many favor it. In conversation, a 
majority take ground against a union with the States, but one 
of the most intelligent tells us that two bad seasons would lead 
to annexation. 

At 6, P. M., wo reach Sarnia, and after supper cross the ferry 
and take a car for Detroit, already nearly filled by a picnic 
party, apparently a low-priced one. The car is old, less than 
seven feet high, and by no means comfortable, but we run over 
a smooth and level line to Detroit, a city larger than Toronto, 
and late in the evening reach excellent quarters, at the Biddle 
House. 

Thus fir the Grand Trunk Railway has drawn little aid from 
its trade with Boston. A large portion of tl\c freight over its 
branch to Portland goes l)y sea to Boston, but the circuit is 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 9 

so great, the transsliipment, risk and delays so ruinous, that 
the line profits little from this part of its business. All this 
will be changed when the New Hampshire railways enter it, 
near the Canada line. 

Then most of the freight now diverted l)y the Vermont Cen- 
tral will return to it, and the freight which now passes via 
Portland to Boston will become remunerative, for the goods 
may be sent through in one-third of the time which has of late 
been required. 

Portland, where the Grand Trunk terminates, is a very spir- 
ited and ambitious city, but, when compared with Boston, sinks 
in importance. 

Its population ranges from thirty to forty thousand, but 
within one hour of the Boston exchange there are seven hun- 
dred' and fifty thousand people, and the wealth of Boston is 
rated for taxation at 1549,000,000, while its annual sales, by 
the returns of the United States revenue, are more than fifty 
times as large as those of Portland. 

It is the great centre of the manufactures of New England. 
Here its raw material is l^jnded, and here a large portion of 
itg goods are sold, and on the way from Montreal to Boston lies 
the valley of the Merrimac, studded with manufacturing cities. 
These might be supplied by the Grand Trunk with Western and 
Canadian produce. 

It is now apparent that there was a serious error in the loca- 
tion of the Grand Trunk. It sprung from the ambition of 
Portland. It built the road with a broad gauge, to pre vent, a 
diversion to Boston. The result has injured the Grand Trunk, 
but Portland does not rival the commercial emporium of New 
England. 

Again, the theory was, that the trade of Canada would be 
with England ; but the Treaty of Reciprocity has demonstrated 
that New England is the great market of Canada, for here two- 

2 



10 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

thirds of its exports were consumed, while England drew most 
of her grain and timber from t]i3 continent of Europe. 

Boston receives most of its breadstufTs by the Boston & 
Albany line, which transports annually 1,400,000 tons, but 
charges high rates in consequence of its high gradients. It 
passes two ranges of mountains, and to obviate these the State 
is now making a tunnel of eight thousand yards, which will re- 
quire several years for its completion ; but there arc no tunnels 
or heavy gradients over the route from Boston to Montreal, and 
the long levels of the Grand Trunk in the valley of the St. 
Lawrence give it great advantages. 

When the Grand Trunk has a terminus at Boston, and Cana- 
dian independence carries free trade over the continent, we may 
well anticipate a development of its traffic which will revive the 
fainting hearts of its suffering stockholders. 

Boston is the true terminus for the Grand Trunk line, for it ■ 
has some advantages over both Portland and New York. Over 
Portland in the extent of its market, and the great resort of 
ships, which bring supplies for factories, and require return car- 
goes of produce. Over New York,'because it is two hundred 
miles nearer Europe, and has a judiciary in 'whose hands prop- 
erty is secure, and merchants in whose stability and integrity 
the country confides. 

Before it lies a brilliant future ; it already wields the Union 
Pacific Railway, and must, ere long, have its lines of new 
steamers to connect China and Japan with Liverpool. 

' Eventually it will have a further impulse, from Ihc Tunnel 
route, which will connect it with Lake Ontario, and from the 
Caughnawaga Canal, by means of which flour will be delivered 
from the great lakes at lower rates than tlie rates to New 
York. 

Dktroit, August 13th. 

After an excellent breakfast, on tlie white fi.>h of the lakes, 
and a pleasant walk through the spacious avenues of Detroit, 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 11 

we take a view of its new city hall, an elegant edifice of free- 
stone, and embark for Chicago at 9 1-2, A. M., in a car of the 
Michigan Central line, and make the run of 285 miles in eleven 
hours. Oar average speed is nearly or quite forty miles the 
hour, exclusive of stops, but we are allowed ample time for din- 
ner and supper. The train is in all its details the best I have 
ever seen,— the engine powerful and efficient. The train com- 
prises five cars — a car for ladies and their attendants, a ear for 
gentlemen, a second-class car, a smoking-car and a baggage-car, 
each long and airy, with a decked roof, patent springs and buf- 
fers, and suitable ventilators, and each can accommodate more 
than fifty passengers. An upper tier of windows runs along 
the decked roofs, and beside them are the ropes which communi- 
cate with the engineer and 'enable him to apply the brake to 
each car and stop the train within three lengths. A polite con- 
ductor walks with me from the rear platform to the baggage- 
room and gives me an arm-chair between its two wide doors, 
from which I get a fine view of the country on either side, and. 
notice the aspect and varied agriculture of the country. The 
baggage-master tells me he has held his place siiw^e the road 
first opened, twenty years since, and has met with no acci- 
dents. His car runs as well as the ladies' car, and I write easily 
on my tablets. 

The aspect of the country has changed since yesterday, 
although we have made little change in latitude. 

The harvest has passed ; we notice less wheat-fields, more 
orchards, pastures, meadows and woodlands, and more Indian 
corn ; the country is more level and better adapted to grass. 

With all respect for Mr. Brydges, we cannot but contrast the 
cars of yesterday, and especially that in which we finished our 
run to Detroit, on a hot summer eve, with the magnificent cars 
in which we travel to-day — lofty parlors or drawing-rooms on 
wheels. Our conductor thinks, from my description, that the 
car of last eve was one of the early cars of this line, now 



12 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

used for the emigrant train. The Grand Trunk line requires a 
better equipage. The trains from New York to Chicago now 
make the run of nine hundred and fifty miles in twenty-nine 
hours. It will not answer for Montreal to consume forty hours 
in running a less distance. She must expend a few thousands 
on her railways, introduce the Pullman and palace sleeping cars, 
and recollect that men who went out west in emigrant cars now 
return with their families as first-class passengers, and caa 
appreciate and pay for comforts and luxuries. 

We notice as we proceed that the bridges and masonry do not 
equal those of the Canadian lines, and that the corn crop, from 
an excess of moisture, is a failure. We notice, too, that while 
the sawed wood is kept dry in sheds, much wood before it is 
sawed is piled in the open air. This liiay answer under the sun 
of an American summer, but the wood must be dry when it 
reaches the furnaces or it wastes its strength that should create 
steam, in evaporating its own moisture. 

Vv'c pass many pleasant towns of six to eight thousand in- 
habitants, many pleasant tcsidences — Ann Arbor, with its uni- 
versity and •twelve hundred students — and early in the evening 
reach Chicago, a city of three hundred thousand people, which 
prides itself on more than a dozen railways, and a port who^e 
custom-house records more arrivals of tonnage, daily, than the 
custom-house of New York, — a port which receives, yearly, 
nearly three millions tons of lumber and breadstuffs, beside 
one or two millions of sheep, swine tmd cattle. 

We meet with no detention on the Michigan Central Railway, 
although it dispatches on a single track thirty-six heavy trains 
daily, and the usual load of its freight trains of twenty-five cars 
exceeds two hundred tons. It is run by telegraph, and the 
conductor tells us its gain of income last year over the previous 
year was $200,000. 

I regard it in most particulars a pattern line. Its average 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 13 

charge for first-class through passengers is not far from two and 
a half cents per. mile ; its rates for freight very moderate.* 

Chicago, August 14th. 
We meet our young friend, Lord Cecil, at the Sherman House. 
He has returned to this point, with the party of scientific men 
who have been across the Mississippi to Des Moines, to observe 
the eclipse, and as it is now Friday eve, and we cannot reach 
Omaha, the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific line, except 
by travelling on Sunday, we determine to devote a day to 
Chicago. 

Saturday, August 14th. 
We have a letter to Mr. Chesborough, the city engineer, and I 
find in him an old acquaintaiice. We accept his invitation to 
inspect the public works. The city is actively engaged in im- 
provements. Its original level was too low for perfect drainage, 
and the city has raised it, in the last ten years, eight or ten feet, 
taking up the original buildings to the new level. It has carried 
out a tunnel two miles under Lake Michigan, to procure pure 
water, and is deepening the Illinois Canal through a long cut in 
rock, to turn part of the waters of Lake Michigan through its 
river into the Illinois, to purify its harbor and improve naviga- 
tion. The waters of the lakes will thus find a new outlet at 
New Orleans. 

The growth of its navigation, and the frequent passage of 
vessels through its drawbridges, have also induced the city to 
construct a tunnel undcrthe river for both foot passengers and 
carriages ; and such has been its success that another has been 
commenced within a few weeks after the completion of the first. 

With an assistant engineer, we visit the river tunnel. It 
commences on a street leading to the river, half way between 
two bridges, eight hundred feet apart, at a point where the river 
is two hundred feet in width. Like the Salem Tunnel, it has 

* See Appendix. 



14 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

open approaches, one four lumdred feet, the other three hun- 
dred feet in length, and the whole extent of tunnel and ap- 
proaches is sixteen hundred feet. Its depth helow the level of 
the street is forty-one feet. Its height " in the clear " is fifteen 
feet, and it has sixteen feet of water over it. 
. The gradient is very easy ; on one side one foot is sixteen, on 
the other, one is eighteen. There are separate arches for the 
carriages going each way, and a sidewalk for passengers. It has 
cost $400,000, and is taken by the passengers in preference to 
the bridges. In winter, I presume it will be easy to keep the 
temperature low, and to coat the floors with snow, when snow 
is blown from the bridges. 

Chicago presents wide avenues lined with fine houses and 
churches, and some immense magazines of merchandise. 

In one of them, the warehouse of Field, Lester & Co., where 
we call, with letters, the annual sales reach fifteen millions of 
dollars. 

As we traverse the city we purchase grapes and pears that 
have arrived in good order from California. In the course of 
the morning we visit a warehouse used for the sale of cars and 
materials for railways. We find" there has been at the West, 
where long and level routes have been opened, a strong ten- 
dency to increase the size, weight and cost of passenger cars, 
and to improve their quality ; the best cars, like the best hotels, 
are most attractive, and one line cannot afford to .be outdone 
by a rival line. Cars are now built sixty-six feet in length, cost- 
ing sixteen thousand dollars. There are three classes of these 
cars. The Pullman Sleeping Car, the Palace or Saloon Car, for 
day use, and the Dining Car ; and here I examine a Pullman 
car. I have given the length and cost. The width is ten feet, 
the heigiit of the interior ten feet six inches, and height of ex- 
terior fourteen feet four inches ; the chief materials, black wal- 
nut, plated ware, embossed French plate glass and mirrors. 

As you enter you pass a wash-room, with marble table and 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 15 

bowl, a commodious water-closet and state-room at each end. 
Then settees on either side for two persons each, with ample 
space between, and sloping sides- to the sloping and frescoed 
ceiling which rises to a long decked roof, panelled, with win- 
dows. Large plate glass windows and curtains line the sides. 

At night the sloping roof comes down, with frames, bedding 
and curtains, and forms two ranges of berths, forty Indies wide, 
much more commodious than the berths of the Cunard steamers, 
and so fev7 are ihc jerks, and so steady the movements of these 
cars, and so great the facilities for change of position, that you 
travel with little or no fatigue, and sleep nearly as well as in 
your own chamber. By ten o'clock, P. M., the lamps sus- 
pended under the decks are extinguished, and the guard devotes 
the night in the wash-room to brushing boots and clothes. Ice- 
water may always be drawn from a silver faucet, and fruit, news- 
papers and sometimes sandwiches may be bought from a tidy 
news-boy, who comes in during the daytime. 

The extra charge for these cars varies in the West from one 
dollar and a half to four dollars per night and day. 

In the Saloon Car revolving arm-chairs are furnished, with 
cozy state-rooms for two or four persons, in long aisles with 
plate windows of forty inches in diameter, and many ornaments 
and comforts. 

In the Dining Cars meals are ordered, and the travellers are 
served with the best viands the country affords at fair prices. 

Thus the traveller, by adding half a cent or a cent a mile to 
his fare, commands comforts and luxuries, and makes travelling 
a pleasure. 

There is one drawback to the satisfaction given by these cars : 
it is the additional weight of such large structures. Formerly, 
a car to seat fifty passengers weighed less than ten tons, and 
cost but two thousand dollars, and to-day, in our paper currency, 
would cost but three thousand dollars ; but the palatial cars I 
have described, weigh twenty-four to twenty-eight tons. Each 



16 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

Pullman car lias tvrenty-eiglit berths, many of which accom- 
modate two persons. And the extra charge, if not diverted 
from the road by intervening" companies, more than suffices to 
pay for the additional cost of traction. I dwell upon these cars, 
as we are to see few others before our return to Chicago. 

In the afternoon we make several excursions through this 
city, now some seven miles in length, and four or five in 
breadth. We visit some of its new parks and vast cattle yards, 
where in the busy days of autumn, fifteen thousand head of 
cattle, as many sheep, and. one hundred and fifty thousand swine 
are sometimes congregated. 

In the evening we learn that intense competition has reduced 
freights betwectt Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard to the rate 
of seven dollars per ton. A long continuance of such rates 
cannot be expected. They are little more than one-third the 
rates now claimed for half the distance by the new lines from 
Chicago to Omaha. 

SuxDAY, August 15th. 

We attend the Episcopal Church, on Wabush Avenue. In 
the course of the day, Senators Morrill and Patterson, and 
several members of Congress arrive in an express train of Pull- 
man cars, with a saloon and dining car, bringing their ladies 
with them. We are joined also by Messrs. Atkins and Prentiss, 
of Boston, in thirty-two hours from Philadelphia. The two last 
propose to accompany us to Cheyenne, on their way to Colorado. 

In the afternoon we walk to the passenger-house of the Mich- 
igan Southern and Rock Island Railways. It is of block stone, 
four hundred and fifty feet in length by one hundred and eighty 
feet in width, with roof projecting on each side over the side- 
walk. It would cover six such houses as we found at the 
Montreal station. These great Western lines, however, are 
outgrowing their stations. They must soon be enlarged. 

At 9 o'clock, P. M.,.we part with Senators Morrill and Sher- 
man, and take passage by the Chicago & North-western line, via 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 17 

• 

Clinton, for Omaha. Distance, four hundred and cightj-eiglit 
miles ; the fare, twenty dollars for each person. We pay also 
five dollars for a saloon with three berths. 

Our car is a Pullman car, with the latest improvements. We 
reserve a sofa for our clothes, and retire early and sleep until 
we approach Cedar Rapids, beyond the Mississippi, and 220 
miles from Chicago, and are notified to dress for breakfast. 
After our repast, we take a day car, for the residue of our day's 
journey. 

Monday, August 16th. 

We are now running 267 miles from Cedar Rapids to the 
Missouri, at Omaha, across the young State of Iowa, one of the 
most fertile in the Union and fast filling with people. 

Our train carries some sixty passengers. The travellers for 
Omaha divide at Chicago, and as three railways are already 
made, and four more are in progress, to connect the great lakes 
and Mississippi River with the Union Pacific Railway, rates 
must fall to the Eastern level, as seven lines will compete for 
the traffic. 

We look from the rear platform on a fine country ; no waste 
lands, but fields of wheat, corn, oats, or open prairies. As we 
advance, the crops, especially those of corn, improve, but as 
we approach the frontier the value of land gradually falls from 
$30 to $5 or $10 per acre, and we find less cultivation and 
improvement ; the settlers have just reached the western line 
of Iowa, advancing with the railways, and have met there the 
tide which has flowed up the Missouri into Nebraska. 

We pass coal mines on our way, with veins of bituminous 
coal, which comes out in square blocks, but soon disintegrates. 
It is of impure character, but answers for locomotives, and sells 
for about three dollars at the pits, where two hundred tons are 
delivered daily. 

It has been carried to Omaha, where it meets the coal from 

3 



18 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

Wyoming. But the Wyoming coal, at ten dollars, has the pref- 
erence. 

We regret to find that this section of the North-western line 
has suffered much from the wet season and the carriage of ma- 
terials for the Pacific line. Many of the rails require removal. 
Tlie road-bed, but seven to nine feet in width, requires a 
large amount of ballast. Our conclusions are verified by the 
fact, that while the Pacific trains have run on time, and the 
New York trains have run in twenty-nine hours to Chicago, 
the trains on this line have been irregular, after requiring 
twenty-nine hours for half the distance from New York to Chi- 
cago. At the present moment, each of the lines running east- 
erly from Omaha towards the seaboard, the C. & N. Western, 
the Rock Island and the St. Joseph's and Council Bluffs, require 
ballast, and the one which first obtains it will have the prefer- 
ence. 

We cross the Missouri by ferry, and reach Omaha in the even- 
ing. 

Large steamers now convey passengers and cars laden with 
freight across the river, and connect with rails laid across the 
intervales of the river. The charge for passage is three-fourths 
of a dollar for passengers, and ten dollars per car for freight, 
and the change involves a loss of one or two hours in making 
the connection. A bridge is in progress, resting on iron tubes 
driven through the shifting sands of the Missouri. It will be 
of great service, and has become absolutely necessary, since a 
rival line has obtained a bridge at Kansas City. The new 
bridge is to be built by an independent company, to whose stock 
the lines centering at Omaha and Council Bluffs contribute. 

Tuesday, August 17th. 

After a pleasant night's rest at the hotel, I rise at G, A. M., 
for my journal and an early breakfast. 

Rival cities are rising near the Bluffs, on each side of the 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 19 

Missouri. They are four miles apart, for ample space must be 
given to the rapid and capricious river. Omaha, on the west 
bank, has at least sixteen thousand people, and Council Bluffs 
more than half that number, and the bridge and railway will 
unite them. Each position is good, but Omaha has most capi- 
tal and people, and the current of opinion sets in its favor, as 
most western cities rise on the western shores of the great 
rivers, although Memphis and Quincy are exceptions. 

The lines from the East will plant most of their stations on 
the eastern shore, and the Union Pacific will probably place 
there a union depot, but its shops and warehouses will be 
chiefly on the west bank of the Missouri. 

The Union Pacific Railway begins at Omaha, and its direc- 
tors have been fortunate in securing the services of Colonel 
Hammond and his associates, Messrs. Nichols and Mead, to 
manage the railway. All speak of them as men of ability and 
experience, " as the right men, in the right place." 

After an interview with these gentlemen, in which we gain 
much valuable information, we repair to the yards and work- 
shops of the company, and devote to them the residue of the 
day. Here is a large stock of engines, cars, wheels, tires, axles 
and other materials, and piles of scrap iron, which accumulated 
while the road was in progress. Steel tires are in general use, 
and highly approved. The engines are from the best builders, 
of large size and in good condition. In the car-shop, new pas- 
senger cars are in progress. For the moment, the line is 
overstocked with freight cars. It has 160 engines, 80 long pas- 
senger and mail cars, and 3,000 freight cars, and employs 250 
of the latter on connecting lines, at a rent of 111,000 per 
month. 

We call at the land office and confer with Mr. Davis, the 
land agent, who exhibits the plans and surveys. 

The land of the company comprises the alternate sections for 
twenty miles on each side of the line, or 12,800 acres per mile. 



20 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

From this must be deducted the land previously granted or 
occupied, which will reduce the grant to about twelve millions 
of acres — a part of it of great fertility, on the lower sections of 
the Platte ; a part in pastures above it ; a part in alkali land ; a 
part abounds in coal and other minerals. The land, at the 
estimate of Mr. Davis, ranges from 20 cents to $20 per acre, 
and in his opinion will average more than a dollar and a half 
per acre. His sales are at the rate of $150,000 per month, and 
average between five and six dollars per acre. He is now sell- 
ing the most fertile and accessible land, but expresses the belief 
that as emigrants pour in the land will advance in value. 

During the day, we discuss the great questions of freight 
and fare, and find the officers of the line inclined to favor mod- 
erate prices. In the course of our inquiries, we find the road 
has on hand nearly sixty thousand cords of wood, costing ten 
dollars a cord, surplus lumber, rails, tools, wheels and other 
materials designed for the extension of the line ; that it has 
also a large claim against the Central Pacific, for fifty-six miles 
of road-bed and track it has finished west of Ogden, and find 
these, with a tn»Iance of two and a fourth millions coming from 
the government, approach eight millions of dollars. 

Here is a fund to close up contracts, to complete structures 
adapted to present use, but requiring further outlay for com- 
pletion. 

The superintendent has just reduced the tariff on coal from 
Carbon to Omaha, a distance of six hundred and fifty miles, to 
$10 per ton, so that coal is now sold at Omaha for $12 per 
ton, or half the price that good coal commanded the last 
winter. 

From Carbon to a point near Cheyenne, the first hundred and 
fifty miles, there is but one rise to be surmounted which ex- 
ceeds thirty-five feet per mile, and that is at Sherman, five 
hundred and fifty miles from Omaha, where the gradient is 
eighty-six feet to the mile. At Sherman the train is 8,230 feet 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 21 

above the level of the sea, and 7,300 feet above Omaha, and 
finds a gradual descent on the way to Omaha, except one as- 
cending gradient of thirty-five feet, at Archer, near Sherman, 
and two of twenty-nine and thirty-three feet near Omaha, 
which together are less than ten miles in length. 

No railway yet built presents a route better adapted for the 
transmission of coal. With its advantage in greater length and 
but one lading and unlading for 656 miles, it surpasses the 
Reading Railway in its power to transport coal. 

It is not at Carbon alone that the line commands coal, but 
for nearly four hundred miles, between the Laramie Basin and 
Evanston, there is abundance of coal, often cropping out by the 
roadside, and at Evanston, sixty-eight miles east of Ogden, a 
vein of thirty feet has been opened, of superior quality. 

At Carbon, the vein is eight feet thick, and is within the 
location of the line. Here one hundred and twenty tons are 
delivered daily from a shaft but eighty feet deep. The coal is 
light, and resinous ; it burns with a bright flame, forms no 
clinker, and often shows small balls of resin, but no traces 
of sulphur are visible, and it is very popular as fuel. 

The coal is held by the Wyoming Coal Company, but the 
vice-president assures us that more than nine-tenths of the 
stock of the Wyoming Company is held in trust for the 
Imion Pacific. 

Wednesday, August 18th. 

After a day devoted to Omaha, we start on the Union Pacific 
Line at 9, A. M. Messrs. Hammond &, Nichols meet us at the 
station and present us with a map and profile of the route, 
giving topography, heights, grades and distances, also a license 
to mount the engine, and we launch upon the prairies. Our 
train comprises a mail car, baggage car, smoking car, two ex- 
cellent passenger cars, and two Pullmans, each sixty-five feet 
long, and each having berths to accommodate thirty-five passen- 



22 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

gers, wliicb give place to a long saloon and padded sofas in the 
daytime, with wash-rooms at either end, and a tank of ice- 
water, with its silver faucet, is always accessible. The saloons 
shine with polished black walnut,, silver plate, mirrors, plate 
glass, and costly lamps are suspended from the frescoed roof, 
ten feet above the floor. 

We assemble on the rear platform, and are soon joined by an 
engineer and two contractors, who have built many railways, 
on their way across the plains. 

For two days' use of the Pullman cars and berths, we each 
pay eight dollars, and on the average, a dollar for each meal. 
The cars are furnished by the Pullman Company, who pay the 
three servants in charge and keep the interior of the cars in 
repair ; while the railway takes care of the exterior and divides 
the income. 

One of the Eastern lines failed to connect with us ; we have 
but seventy passengers and ample space for our comfort, as we 
could easily seat two hundred. * 

The emigrant train has this morning gone forward with 
seven hundred passengers, charged $50 each, from sea to sea ; 
while the rate for first-class is $150 from New York to the 
Pacific. 

As we launch out on the prairie, we notice two telegrm)h 
lines : one with three wires, owned by the Western Union Com- 
pany, the other with two wires, the property of the railway. 
These lines extend from Omaha to the Pacific. 

As we proceed, we notice windmills at the water stations, pro- 
pelled by the winds which blow across the plains, which pump the 
water, and on either side land of great fertility, fast improving. 
No forests, a few cottonwood trees along the streams, but 
young groves of apple trees, walnuts and cottonwood spring- 
ing up around the settlers' houses. Meadows, cornfields 
and wheat fields. The native grasses would make several tons 
of hay to the acre, but a small portion is yet mowed or pas- 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 23 

tured. Tho corn is more luxuriant than any we have seen, 
and the crop will be a good one. 

In the course of the day we pass Fort Kearney, and by 10 
P. M. the North Platte River. For this distance the rail is laid 
without fish joints, two to three feet above the plain. The road-bed 
is ten feet wide, with ties whose centres are two feet apart, and 
is ballasted chiefly with the sand that underlies the soil, resem- 
bling that which the Platte River rolls into sand bars. It gives 
a firm bed for the rail, but is liable to yield to wind and rain 
and would be greatly improved by a layer of gravel. As the 
rail wears out and the ties, in part of cottonwood, decay, it will 
be politic to raise the track by gravel, as this will secure the 
ballast, avoid freshets and reduce the annual charge for repairs. 
But for a new line, it is to-day in excellent condition, and our 
motion easy and equable. 

We dine and sup in commodious rooms near the track, and 
at night the berths and bedding descend from the sloping roof, 
and we sleep comfortably in our state rooms, on mattresses 
forty inches wide. During the evening, when three hundred 
miles from Omaha, we converse with a gentleman who had been 
thirty days afoot on the plains, in achieving the same distance 
we have traversed since breakfast. The cars move quietly, and 
stop and start without jar ; we sleep quite as well as at sea, and 
are refreshed by our slumbers. 

Thursday, August 19th. 

We are called at 6.30 A. M., to dress for breakfast at Chey- 
enne, some miles beyond us. This station is five hundred and 
sixteen miles from Omaha, and five thousand feet above it. 
Some of the passengers point out deer and antelope in the dis- 
tance, and occasional herds of cattle, but the buffalo avoid the 
railway, and have no ear for the music of the engine. We 
pass a few detachments of troops at the chief stations, but see 
one Indian only hunting with his bow and arrow. We are now 



24 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

travelling on a well gravelled road, and on a good rail laid with 
fish joints, the road-bed improves as we approach the mountains ; 
while the grass is brownc'r and less luxuriant than at lower 
levels. The sunflower grows luxuriantly in the ditch on each 
side of the railway, and the air is exhilarating. 

After breakfast we begin to ascend the chief rise between 
the two oceans, — young Cecil on the engine ; and in twenty- 
eight miles, with a gradient of seventy-nine feet to the mile, 
reach Sherman, 8,235 feet above the sea, and descend with a 
short gradient of eighty-six feet to Laramie, 573 miles from 
Omaha, which we reach at noon. The chief summit at Sher- 
man is passed without a tunnel, by a very judicious location 
through cuts of fifteen to tliirty feet in depth in limestone, 
slate and decomposed granite, which affords good material for 
ballasting the track in the plains below.* A single engine, with 
a little aid at Cheyenne, might take down seven hundred tons 
at once and distribute it upon the plains, and thus perfect the 
road-bed and prolong the life of the rails, now in excellent con- 
dition, and costly to renew. The embankments arc light, the 
route well chosen, and the passage of the mountains, now free 
from snow, does credit to the engineer. The line of perpetual 
snow is still five thousand feet above us. 

As Laramie is an important station, on a plateau seven thou- 
sand feet above the sea, and we are now on the table land of 
the continent, which, for five hundred miles, ranges from six to 
seven thousand feet above tide-water, until the line reaches the 
Echo and "Weber canons, and descends nearly two thousand 
feet to the level of Salt Lake City, we determine to alight 
and devote a day to the shops and surroundings of Laramie. 

We dine on antelope and other choice viands at an excellent 
hotel, erected by the company, where two hundred passengers 
may easily dine, and sixty find comfortable lodgings. This 
hotel is already a favorite resort for invalids who wish to in- 
hale the pure mountain air. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 25 

We present a letter of introduction to Dr. Latham, who has 
charge of a hospital for employees, and I am indebted to him 
for much valuable information and a meteorological journal 
which I hope to subjoin to this Report. He takes us to his garden 
to show us that pease, beans, potatoes and tomatoes grow well at 
this elevation, and he presents us with luxuriant stalks of oats, 
barley and wheat, which grew up beside an old warehouse at 
Benton, on this plateau, from grain dropped there accidentally. 

He considers this region and the hills and higher plains well 
adapted to pasturage, and assures us that cattle will thrive sum- 
mer and winter in natural pastures without fold? or shelter. 

To illustrate this he gives the case of a farmer who came to 
these plains four years since, with seven hundred sheep, that 
have increased to twenty-eight hundred, and quotes Mr. Major, 
who has sent many thousand trains across the plains, and found 
that cattle and sheep will thrive in the open air, both on the 
plains and hills on the whole territory from Mexico to British 
America. 

How is it, that with beef selling at thirty-five cents a pound 
in Boston, and with statisticians reporting that the people of 
Great Britain eat but two ounces of meat a day, that these 
great pastures, within three days of Boston and fourteen days 
of Liverpool, are not covered with cattle ? 

Li the afternoon we go through the engine-house and find 
stalls for twenty engines, and examine the shops of the com- 
pany, which are provided with lathes, tools, tires and other 
materials for repairs. 

We inspect the coal in use on the road and find it very 
resinous and very acceptable to the engine-men. 

One of the employees tells me the trains were detained last 
winter for several weeks between Laramie and Salt Lake, but 
thinks the danger may be averted by three miles of sheds, over 
exposed cuts, and by snow-fences, some of which are now com- 
pleted. The foreman of the shops tells me, their engines with 

4 



26 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

eight drivers are competent to take one hundred and sixty tons 
of coal over the summit. With such power, two trains from 
Carbon, with three hundred tons of coal, may be taken with one 
assistant engine over the summit, and then drawn by one engine 
to the first ascending grade near Omaha. The returning coal 
trains can take back the cars with freight from the East, which 
now exceeds the freight from the West. 

Fkiday, August 20th. 

We take breakfast this morning with passengers who came 
by a train from CaUfornia, which brings a hundred and thirty 
people. This train must pay at least -f 13,000 to the two rail- 
ways. It arrives on time by the card. 

After breakfast, we ride out upon the plains with Dr. Latham, 
who entertained us hospitably last eve at his residence. We 
find good grass, and notice in many places the bones and 
wallows of buffalo, who frequented these pastures. During our 
drive, a flock, of plover light within gun-shot, and we see a wild 
duck sailing along the Laramie River, within shooting distance. 

We find a flock of five hundred Mexican sheep that have 
wintered on the plains, in good condition, and pass by the in- 
closure where they are folded at night, and a herd of cattle that 
supply the hotel with beef and milk. They are feeding on dry. 
grass on the high ground and in meadows near the river. 

Dr. Latham makes the annual fall of rain in this country but 
twelve inches. We have had as much fall in a single storm in 
New England, and carry away roads and bridges, which are here 
secure. 

At 12|, P. M., after an early dinner, we again take the cars 
for the West, and in the evening pass Carbon, and stop to ex- 
amine the mine, where a train of cars is receiving the coal from 
the pits' mouth, on a side track. The coal, as it comes from 
the mines, confirms our favorable impressions. Doubtless more 
mines will be opened ; but the mines at Carbon and Evanston 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 27 

alone will supply the entire line with coal at an average cost 
of $4.00 to $5.00 per ton at the points of consumption in a 
country nearly destitute of wood. Nature, by this bountiful sup- 
ply, has placed a mighty lever in the hands of the Union Pacific. 
From the bridge across the North Platte, we find the road 
well made, the track laid with fish joints and in good condition. 

Saturday, August 21st. 

At 3 o'clock this morn I awake and find the track less 
smooth than yesterday ; it was laid with great dispatch during 
the winter and early spring. After the embankment was fin- 
ished the sides were thrown up for ballast and the track laid on 
this surface, and now a steam shovel, and Mormons, with oxen 
attached to large scrapers, are busy ballasting the line. We 
pass a number of trestle bridges, gravel trains and viaducts 
where the alkaline stone, used for abutments, has crumbled, 
and a large force is engaged in perfecting these structures, and 
we pass in safety through the beautiful scenery of Echo and 
Weber canons, wonderful ravines, pass several small tunnels, 
one lined with timber, others self-supporting, and the immense 
rocks, Great Eastern and Western. The train "passes the one- 
thousandth mile-stone in forty-nine hours from Omaha, run- 
ning slowly over the new road. A dozen passengers gather 
upon the platform as we descend to Uintah, where we alight 
and take the coach for Salt Lake City late in the forenoon. 

All the contractors and engineers with whom we have 
travelled, agree that the line, for a new road, is in excellent 
condition, and those who have seen the Illinois Central and the 
Ohio lines in their infancy, think this superior to them when 
first opened, and able to run with much greater speed. 

In the coach all distinctions of rank are lost ; the Mormons 
secure the best seats. Young Cecil sits next to a baker from 
London, and another Englishman, quite unpolished, finds fault 
with both countries. 



28 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

The road is rough, and we are glad to stop to change horses 
at a Mormon inn, and here we notice the ravages of the grass- 
hopper. They have devoured the pease, beans and lettuce, and 
assailed the peaches and apples of the garden, and stripped 
many of the fruit-trees. They have destroyed some of the 
leaves of the corn ; but the great army have left the wheat and 
vineyards uninjured. 

In the mild climate of this region, wheat and corn ripen 
early, the grain has been harvested, the corn is beyond the reach 
of frost, and grapes, pears, peaches and apples are ripening. 
The trees show smooth bark and vigorous growth. I trace the 
luxuriant vegetation, not to mere irrigation, but to the quicken- 
ing power of alkali, dissolved in water, which has converted the 
sage bush into luxuriant orchards and cornfields. 

The wheat, without fertilizers, returns this year, thirty-four 
bushels to the acre, and the cost of irrigation does not exceed 
twelve dollars per acre. The annual cost of maintenance is less 
than one-fifth of this amount. How much less would it cost 
to create a farm in the forest ? 

As we approach Salt Lake we pass over plains and through 
valleys and farms covered with brown grass or sage brush, and 
many spots exhibiting signs of alkali. Sometimes the efferves- 
cence is visible, and in some places the water is discolored, but 
now we find ourselves in a large basin, with the lake before us, 
terraces, surrounded by mountains, which by their shape re- 
mind one of Vesuvius. We pass rills from the mountains, 
crossing our road and led to terraces below us, on which the 
reapers are now harvesting the golden grain. 

Our route is along the edge of the wheat fields for nearly 
thirty miles, to Salt Lake City, which extends in a succession of 
terraces or fields of different levels, towards the lake, and pre- 
sents a charming appearance. It is laid out in lots of an acre 
and a quarter, cultivated as gardens, containing small but tasteful 
houses. These gardens are irrigated from the hills. Apples, 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 29 

pears, peaches, plums and grapes grow luxuriantly in these 
inclosurcs. Water has clothed the sombre pastures and sage- 
bush plains with trees and verdure, and produced results which 
water fails to produce on our eastern soil. 

The young trees grow with a smooth bark, which reminds 
me of trees washed with soap-suds ; and a few days later I 
notice the same aspect on the plains of California, where fruit- 
trees have been planted on plains impregnated with alkali. 

Is it not possible that the alkali dissolved in water is the 
secret agent of this remarkable vegetation, and that the wastes 
now branded by travellers as worthless, will eventually be trans- 
formed by the magic power of water, to gardens, orchards and 
wheat fields, — that reservoirs will be made in mountain ravines, 
and conduits laid to carry the water across the basins, and 
that the growth of trees will increase the rain-fall ? 

Since the settlement of the Mormons in this valley, twenty 
years since, the rain-fall has increased, and already on the Pa- 
cific route showers are more frequent than when the hunter 
first crossed the mountains. 

We pass the Sulphur Spring, memorable for the death of 
Robinson, the old and new tabernacles, the houses of Brigham 
Young and his chief followers, pass through wide streets with 
rivulets and shade-trees on either side, and alight at the chief 
hotel, the Townsend House, where we are entertained by Mr. 
Townsend and his three helpmates, and where we are soon after 
joined by the congressional party. 

I present a letter to Mr. Hooper, a Mormon member of Con- 
gress, and devote the afternoon to the city, and the evening to 
the theatre, where we see several wives and children of Brig- 
ham Young, and the elite of the city. 

Mr. Hooper, the Mormon member of Congress, tells us that 
the Mormons are a peaceful people, but does not seek to exten- 
uate the death of Robinson. 

He tells us all the nails which were driven in the Mormon 



30 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

houses have cost thirty-five cents a pound for transportation, 
but thinks the railway, wliich reduces that cost to five^ charges 
too liigh. lie is disappointed because the railway does not reach 
the city, and thinlis it will injure the trade of Utah, "which 
found a market in the emigration across the plains. 

Sunday, August 22d. 

Rose at 6, A. M. The clear sky, gardens and scenery of this 
city bring Italy before me, and the blue mountains which encir- 
cle it, and lake in the distance, remind me constantly of the 
environs of Naples. 

Tlie Mormons have shown good taste in their selection of this 
magnificent valley. 

At 10, A. M., we repair to the old tabernacle, a structure of 
elliptic shape, which will hold fifteen hundred, and is well filled. 
An organ and choir are in a gallery at one end, and the elders, 
grey-headed men, occupy a platform at the other. Elder Rock- 
well opens the meeting. He calls on Elder Boise, who has just 
returned from Virginia, to give an account of his mission. 
Elder Boise addresses the people as the Latter Day Saints, tells 
them " he went at the call of the President, and left them with 
reluctance, but found an opening in Wythe County, Virginia, and 
m some of the inland counties of North Carolina, where the soil 
was poor, the people poor, and the land set edgewise, and they had 
to till it on both sides ; that he found there that slavery had been a 
failure, the rebellion a failure, emancipation a failure, and their 
religion a failure ; that some women in this city thought their 
lot a hard one, but he had seen white women follow the plough ; 
that he told them of the House the Lord had established in the 
mountains for his saints ; that they alone followed the Bible ; 
that they alone had apostles, bishops and seventy elders, and 
had fulfilled prophecy ; that Providence had sent them water in 
dry places, and in one place a hundred and fifty springs had 
broken out where they had never flowed before ; that a ministei 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 31 

who had turned them from his door in a rain had died soon 
afterwards, and a church from which they were cxchided had 
been struck by lightning ; and that he had brought liome a train 
of followers." Thus do they beguile the poor and unhappy. 
He added, " that the love for one wife was not lost in the love for 
the second, any more than the love for a first child was lost in 
love for a second ; that they did not put one woman on a pedes- 
tal to worship her, but saved the sex from degradation." 

"When I looked at the array of homely women before me, I 
came to the conclusion that if they each had but one-fourth of 
a husband, they would have but one-fourth of a chance in the 
outer world. I could discover no beatitude in their expres- 
sion. They were clad as plainly as they looked, and the con- 
trast between them and the gentile ladies who visited them was 
very marked and striking. 

Elder Cannon also addressed the meeting. He told them 
" they were driven to this valley by their foes, and thanked them 
for it ; that if they left it they would find corrupt men in the 
world, and would be glad to return ; that they could not be 
driven from it by the red hand of violence ; that plurality of 
wives would not be abandoned ; that you might strike off the 
head of the mustard, but the seed would be scattered ; that they 
accepted the consequences of the sacrifices they had made ; " to 
which the people responded with several loud amens. 

In the afternoon we visit the new tabernacle, like the other, 
elliptic or egg-shaped in its form, and large enough to hold five 
thousand people. At one end is an organ of immense size, 
built by the Mormons, and estimated to cost $100,000. 

The ciders occupy a raised platform, and some of them break 
and distribute bread among the audience. The elder, Elrige, 
makes a prayer, a hymn is sung, a missionary reports his suc- 
cess in converting many poor people at Southampton, England, 
who have come with him to the valley, and George Smith, the 
historian of the sect, recounts their adventures at Nauvoo, 



32 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

their flight to Council Bluffs, and their establishment in this 
valley, where their settlements extend for six hundred miles 
over plains once covered by sage bush or alkali, where they 
raise grain, corn, cotton and fruit. 

He tells us the crickets once came in armies to devour their 
crops, but were destroyed by a remarkable flight of sea-gulls, 
from the^ lake. A.fter the audience is dismissed, the members 
of Congress ascend the platform and are presented to Brigham 
Young. 

During the evening, Messrs. Young, Cannon, and Smith call 
upon the guests at the Salt Lake House, and I am introduced 
to them. I learn from them that a branch railway to Ogden is 
nearly graded and will be completed by October ; that they 
have nearly finished a canal thirty-five miles in length, thirty 
feet wide and four feet in depth, partly for irrigation and partly 
to extend the navigation of the lake, and that by the railway, 
lake and canal, they will send goods to the interior. They 
have constructed nearly four hundred miles of the Pacific 
Railway. 

I asked Mr. Cannon how he explained the miracle of one hun- 
dred and fifty springs. He said in one of their townships, they 
had a stream which they supposed would water two hundred acres, 
but it sufficed for several tracts of land, and when they were sat- 
urated, the water broke out in springs below them and watered 
the next terrace, and thus they had reclaimed five thousand acres 
in one locality. I then inquired if they followed the injunc- 
tions of St. Paul and confined their bishops to one wife, and if, 
like the Greek Church, they forbid them to take a second, when 
the first one died. To which with a smile he replied, we con- 
strue St. Paul's words to mean that " the bishop must have at 
least one wife." This, I replied, is what we lawyers term a 
very liberal construction. 

We learn from these visitors that the lake has risen eleven 
feet since the Mormons entered the valley ; that the climate be- 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 33 

comes more moist as cultivation advances, and tliat the alkali 
is utilized to make soap and is used as a substitute for saleratus. 

The city of Salt Lake has sixteen thousand people, and the 
Territory one hundred and twenty thousand, nearly all Mor- 
mons. A post of the United States, with several hundred troops 
is planted near them. It now pays twenty-two dollars a ton 
for coal, and will be aided by the railway. 

I venture to predict that on the completion of the railway, 
the coal from Evanston will supply the Mormon territory and 
this military station. That coal alone will support a daily train, 
and it would not surprise me if it should carry wood and lum- 
ber also, as well as goods, and return laden with salt, to which 
the Mormons may easily reduce the dense waters of the lake. 

Monday, August 23d. 

At 5 o'clock, A. M., after an early breakfast on the salmon 
trout of Utah, we take our seats in the coach. Some forty 
passengers are on the wing, after passing the Sunday at Salt 
Lake ; and fill three coaches. On our way an intelligent farmer 
tells us that although irrigated land is worth a hundred 
dollars an acre in Utah, and the crops are large, the farms are 
smaller and less profitable than those of Iowa. He concedes, 
however, that they yield more wheat and fruit per acre. 

We learn from him that coal rose last winter to $40 a ton at 
Salt Lake, and that the scarcity of fuel has been a great draw- 
back to the Mormons. On our way to Uintah we catch many 
glimpses of the lake and wheat fields and surrounding moun- 
tains. At Uintah we find the cars on time, and at 11.30 A. M. 
join, for the third time, a train for California. At Ogden, four 
miles west of Uintah, we pass the Salt Lake Branch and future- 
terminus of the Union Pacific. At Corinne we cross Bear 
River, an important stream, on which logs and ties may be 
floated three hundred miles to the lake, where timber now sells 

5 



34 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

for $45 per thousand. Ifc would be desirable for tlie Union Pa- 
cific, when it settles with the Central line, to secure the trans- 
portation of this freight at low rates to Ogden. 

Beyond Ogden the Union Pacific has laid its track 56 miles to 
Promontory, a high peninsula jutting into the lake, and has 
graded thirty-five miles more westward, while the Central Pa- 
cific has graded some fifteen miles east of Promontory. Thus 
have the two companies invested in earthworks two or three 
hundred thousand dollars in their contest for supremacy. It 
may be hoped these road-beds may some day be utilized for 
second tracks ; for the present the investment is dormant. 

At Promontory the two lines meet, but no station greets the 
passenger ; the precise point for the station is not yet fised, and 
tlie operatives of the two companies, Chinese on one side and 
Hibernians on the other, like two hostile armies, are still en- 
camped under canvass. An early decision as to the point of 
union, and suitable stations, are important to both parties. 

The present spot is not fit for a station. Water is now drawn 
to it, twenty miles on one side and fifteen on the other, but at 
Ogden or Corinne, and at other points, pure water is easily ac- 
cessible. The whole line of the Union Pacific from Oiuaha to 
Ogden is now well supplied with both coal and water, and in 
future it will draw its ties from St. Paul's to Columbus and 
Omaha, or from Bear River to Ogden, at a cost that will not 
probably exceed sixty-five cents each, and find a portion of its 
supplies at similar rates on the North Platte or Green River. 

After shifting baggage and thus losing two hours at Promon- 
tory, we enter the silver palace cars of the Central Pacific. Our 
train comprises two silver palace, two passenger and two bag- 
gage or mail cars, with about one hundred first-class passengers, 
and we take the berths we have engaged by telegram. In as- 
cending the short gradient of eighty feet or more, at Promon- 
tory, we have used two engines and crossed a trestle bridge — 
strong, but a temporary structure. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 35 

The last sixty miles have been made hastily by a large body 
of men, who have temporarily used the side of the embankments 
for surfacing, and some work is still required for completion. 

The cars in which we move are very tasteful and commodious; 
less costly, but almost as elegant, while they are lighter, than 
those of the Union line. The road bed of the Central line is 
wide, and all but thirty-five miles of it appears to be well bal- 
lasted with gravel. ' 

Its curvature, however, is ten degrees, in place of six, on the 
Union line, and as it clings in many places to the foot hills, its 
gradients occasionally rise to 70 feet. We cannot fully appre- 
ciate the views of the engineer in his choice of routes, as a 
more level line might have been run through the valley. He 
may have had in view a better supply of water from the hills ; 
the track is smooth, the rails fish jointed, and we move on 
pleasantly and equably across several basins fringed with moun- 
tains, towards the valley of the Humboldt. 

Here, in lake and river, are lasting memorials of the great 
philosopher of Europe and explorer of the new world. 

Tuesday, August 24th. 

We are now running through mountain passes and the valley 
of the Humboldt, and stop to breakfast at Elcho, opposite the 
mining districts of Cope and White Pine. 

The platform of the station is thronged by miners, and boys 
ofi*er us fruit and papers at high prices. The currency now 
changes from paper to gold, and we pay five dollars each for 
our berths and a quarter of a dollar for a paper, while our 
meals cost us usually a dollar. The track continues uniformly 
good, but the fuel piled by the wayside, consists of small cedar 
wood, and does not compare with that piled on the line of the 
Union Pacific. Since we entered the Central Pacific the track- 
men are Chinese, apparently quiet and industrious, and the 
slopes and ditches evince much care and patient industry. 



36 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

The track is in fine condition. "We pass occasional meadows, 
herds of cattle and hay fields, that have been mown, but most 
of the country is covered with dry grass or sage bush and 
wears a sombre aspect. 

At eve, we stop at Humboldt for our dinner, and here we 
notice a conduit from the mountain which brings water and 
fertility. 

fti front of our inn is a garden, just reclaimed from the 
waste ; the^' sage bush still stands around it, and a belt of it 
crosses the garden, but " kind nature's sweet restorer," the rill 
from the mountain, has called into life corn, potatoes, pease, 
beans and other vegetables, and given proof of latent fertility 
on these wide-spread plains. We hear too of green valleys 
among the distant hills, and that cattle will thrive on the dry 
pasture. 

We learn that at three points on the Central line water is 
taken in tanks to stations, but that soon all will come from the 
mountain springs in pipes, some of which will exceed nine 
miles in length. 

No part of the line will suffer from an insufficient supply of 
water. 

During the night, we pass Humboldt Lake and enter the val- 
ley of the Truckee, a mountain stream that flows from Lake 
Taho, on the borders of California. 

Wednesday, August 25th. 

At 4, A. M., I discern pine trees from my windiw, and rise to. 
watch our course over the Sierra Nevada, whose eastern slope 
we are now ascending. We pass Reno, the station nearest to 
Virginia City, and the celebrated Comstock Ledge, and run on to 
Truckee, where we learn that a snow shed over the track some 
miles west, has taken fire, and are detained and breakfast. 

The Cornucopia of California has been poured over the Sierra 
Nevada. As we walk upon the platform of the station, after 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 37 

our repast, we notice fruit-stands and piles of choice melons, 
pears, peaches, plums and grapes of many varieties. Nearly all 
the passengers have clusters of White Muscats. "While we pay 
our compliments to the breakfast, a member of the bar, who 
resides here, tells us that we must taste the Black Hamburgs, 
our choice green-house grapes, which ripen in the open air in 
California. He leaves us for a few minutes and returns with a 
large cluster of these grapes — such as the spies bore to the 
Hebrews from the Promised Land. Young Cecil admits that 
these equal the best he has seen in conservatories at home, and 
they find much favor with the ladies on their way westward. 

In company with Mr. Hoadley, who, with his sons, runs a saw- 
mill on the Truckee, a stream, that brings from Lake Tako and 
the mountain a large supply of pine timber, I ride to his mill. 
Some of the logs which we see in the mill-pond, are five to six 
feet in diameter, and these are easily taken from the stream to 
the saw, by a sledge that runs under them and is drawn up by 
the water-wheel. The water-power and timber have built up 
here a flourishing village, — some thirty mills are planted on the 
falls of the Truckee, and one hundred and sixty millions of feet, 
or half the amount of lumber shipped from Bangor, are made 
here annually, giving at least one hundred thousand tons of 
freight and material to the railway. It is shipped hence as far 
as Elcho and White Pine, and for six dollars a thousand, or for 
five cents a ton per mile, over the Sierra to Sacramento. 

Soon a telegram comes with instructions to advance and ex- 
phauge passengers with the morning train from Sacramento. 
We slowly ascend the Sierra, on a gradient of 105 feet to the 
mile, with two engines, catching beautiful views through the 
ravines of mountains, with their diadems of snow and the 
sparkling Lake Downer far below us, encircled by tall pines. 
We wind around the lake as we ascend, we pass the summit and 
reach the scene of the fire, a few miles west of the summit, 
passing alternately through tunnels and snow sheds, all well con- 



38 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

structed, the latter sustained by tall sticks of pine, ten to fifteen 
inches through, apparently hewn from the forest beside them, 
and leaving room for two tracks between them. On our way 
across the mountains, we pass through thirty miles of shed, divid- 
ed by tunnels and open spaces into at least thirty-five sections. 

The fire has run nearly two miles, from an open space to a 
tunnel, and the cinders are on the slope below us. Many of the 
ties, partially covered with earth, have been destroyed, and the 
rails are in some cases warped and twisted. Our passengers 
descend from the cars, each with a valise, shawl or some other 
appendage. Some stop to aid ladies across culverts. Some 
bear infants in their arms. As our procession advances the 
trunks and heavy articles are seized by Chinese trackmen, 
swung on long poles, and thus borne quietly along suspended 
from their shoulders. Can such strength spring from rice, or 
are they invigorated by a new diet ? On the way we pass a like 
procession from the West, ascending, as we descend, the highest 
gradient of the Sierra Nevada, 116 feet to the mile. Soon we 
reach the western train, and ere long forget our efforts and 
fatigue in another set of silver palace cars which await our ar- 
rival. Again under weigh, we soon slowly descend the gradient 
and reach Sacramento, the second city of the State, 130 miles 
from San Francisco, with friends who have come in seven days 
from the Atlantic, and here we find comfortable quarters at the 
Golden Eagle. 

Sacramento, California, Thursday, August 26th. 

After a good night's sleep, and breakfast of melons, grapes, 
broiled salmon and English muffins, we meet a gentleman, origi- 
nally from Boston, who offers to pilot us to the warehouses 
where grapes and pears are packed for transportation. Around 
this city, and on the rivers and railways between it and San 
Francisco, are some of the finest orchards, vineyards, and fruit 
gardens of California. The markets overflow with fruit, as the 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 39 

rivers do with salmon, and here the business of packing has be- 
gun, and the best mode of packing is still in debate, but the 
preference is given to small boxes, with slats on the sides, in 
crates or hampers, and some use sawdust or cork dust to sus- 
tain the grapes. Some fruit has been lost by delay or poor 
packing, but that which reaches Chicago and the eastern cities 
in six days or less, and is well packed, arrives in good condition 
and sells rapidly. A single carload of nine tons, which cost in 
California but $900, has paid a profit of $1,500 over freight and 
charges, and was then sold by retail at large profits. 

We learn here that grapes are worth at the vineyards but 
one and one-half cents a pound for the wine-press, and new 
wine sells for twenty-five cents a gallon without the cask, and 
that grapes and pears command but two to five cents per pound 
for the best quality ; that fruit gardens and vineyards yield nine 
thousand pounds of fruit to the acre, and that the market is 
overstocked with fruit. The vines and trees are yet young, and 
low as prices are, they bid fair to be lower with future growth, 
Chinese labor and competition. 

A single township, which would not be missed in California, 
where individuals cultivate 30,000 acres, would suffice to give 
ninety thousand tons of fruit to the railway, or sixty carloads 
daily in six months ; a supply of three carloads a day for each 
of our twenty larger Atlantic cities, where early and choice 
pears and plums and green-house grapes would be appreciated, 
could they be delivered at a cost of five cents per pound, 
and six cents per pound, freight and charges. 

It is already apparent that the railways may send this freight 
through in six days with great profit, at six ■ cents per pound, 
in express or emigrant trains, and there can be little doubt of a 
market when this is accomplished. 

After visiting the markets, we present our letters of intro- 
duction to Governor Leland Stanford and Mr. Crocker, the 
President and Superintendent of the Central Pacific line, and 



40 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

congratulate them on the condition of their road, and learn 
from them that the income drawn from the line in May, June 
and July has been $1,637,007 in gold, or $2,182,676 in cur- 
rency. This is nearly the same with the receipts of the Union 
Pacific line, for the same period, and shows that the two lines 
as a unit before their through freight is developed and with less 
than three trains on the average on the Union Pacific, are 
earning c£37 a mile a week, or more than the great East In- 
dian Railway earned last year, with many trains and a much 
higher cost per mile.f 

Messrs. Stanford and Crocker gave us a cordial welcome. 
When I suggested the policy of carrying between sea and sea, 
in currency at $125 for first class, $75 for second class and $15 
for emigrant passengers, they expressed a wish to go lower, 
and when I suggested as rates for through freight six cents a 
pound on perishable or valuable freight by express trains, five 
cents for first class and two and one-half cents for third class, 
or $1,200, $1,000 and $500 per carload, they expressed their 
readiness to accede. In the course of conversation they stated 
that, although their local charges were much below the rates by 
stage and wagon, they were well aware they were not the 
standard for prices across the continent; that with coal for fuel, 
at fair prices, and one lading and unlading for long distances, 
the cost of transit would be reduced. 

It was obviously for their interest to take the freight and 
emigrants now carried across the Isthmus, and induce the 
owners of the steamers running to the Isthmus to transfer 
their steamers to tlie route between China and San Francisco. 
In reply to a suggestion from the Hon. Mr. Eldridge of Wis- 
consin, as to the interest on the national bonds issued iu aid of 
the enterprise. Governor Stanford assured him the interest 
would be paid. While I conferred with the officials. Lord 
Cecil examined the shops and engines, and found the equipage 

* See Appendix. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 41 

in good condition. He obtained here and from the vice-presi- 
dent a few days later, the following account of rolling stock, 



VIZ. 



166 locomotives received. 

24 shipped or in progress. 

148 passenger, express and baggage cars. 

2,174 freight cars. 

95 gravel cars. 

We learn also that the new railway will be finished to Oak- 
land or Alameda, within five miles by ferry, of San Francisco, 
by the 6tli of September, as the tracklayers are completing it 
at the rate of fifteen miles a week, to be in season for the fair, 
from which the company expect to realize $40,000. 

This railway will shorten the journey to the Atlantic at least 
ten hours. It passes through one of the best and most popular 
portions of California, abounding in fruit and grain. It has 
received from government a subsidy of two and one-half mil- 
lions for one hundred and twenty-four miles ; and as the gov- 
ernor states, has not thus far issued any mortgage bonds. There 
are no costly works upon the line ; the highest gradient is 
fifty-three feet to the mile, and the governor hopes to send his 
fast trains through in four hours from the ferry in the harbor 
of San Francisco to Sacramento. 

According to the best estimates I can form, the Union Pacific 
will be able to take, on the average, two hundred tons, and the 
Central Pacific one hundred and fifty tons of merchandise on 
their freight trains. 

Friday, August 27th. 

As the line to Alameda is not yet open, we take the cars on 

another line to Vallejo. On our way, we pass through wheat 

fields and pastures ; see many cattle and horses, and notice" at 

each station many thousand sacks of wheat piled in the open 

6 



42 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

air. The railway on which we travel is delivering eight thou- 
sand sacks of wheat daily on navigable waters. 

In the cars a tall and portly gentleman addresses me by 
name, and reminds me of a summer twenty years since, which 
we passed together at Plymouth, when he, Dr. Merritt, was 
preparing to sail for California, as a young physician. He in- 
vites me to visit him at his country-seat at Oakland. He left 
•with little property, but has prospered in California. He points 
out to us the forts and navy-yard, the Golden Gates and the 
rising city as we sail down the bay and meet the refreshing 
breezes of ocean, after a warm night at Sacramento, and by 
noon "we land at San Francisco, as fresh as when we left Bos- 
ton, without any feeling of fatigue, and learn that the gap 
caused by the fire has been closed behind us. 

We take our quarters at the Lick House, a most comfortable 
inn, present our letters, and call on Messrs. Badger, Ralston, 
Mills and other gentlemen, and accept the invitation of Mr. 
Ralston to pass the 29th with him at his 'country seat, and to 
take a drive through the environs of San Francisco. 

During the afternoon we visit, with Mr. Badger, the fruit 
market, where we find an abundance of choice vegetables, straw- 
berries, and at least twenty varieties of delicious plums, pears, 
peaches and grapes of greenhouse varieties, but grown in the 
open air. We are invited to taste, and to buy at a few cents 
per pound. We visit the Exchange and Mercantile Library, 
well furnished with books, magazines and reading-rooms, and 
take from the shelf the Merchants' Magazine for December, 
1856, in which I predict that the Pacific Railways would earn 
$9,000 a mile a year, or X36 a mile a week, which I am happy 
to find is already verified in the infancy of the enterprise. 

San Francisco, August 28th. 

Here we receive welcome letters from home, dated ten days 
after our departure j and our young friend starts for the quick- 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. ' 43 

silver mines of Almaden. At breakfast we meet Mr. Denman, 
the able superiuteudeiit of the public schools, who tells us that 
this city, with less than 140,000 people, has an average attend- 
ance of 15,000 pupils on its free schools, and expends on them 
half a million in gold yearly. We call on Mr. Stowe, of the 
Board of Trade, who tells me two-thirds of the people are 
urgent for a reduced tariff, and introduces me to many lead- 
ing merchants, among them to Mr. Alfred Haraszthy, from 
Hungary, who devotes himself to the production and sale of 
wine. 

I learn from him that most varieties of the grape thrive in 
California ; that the produce per acre is fifty per cent, larger 
than in Europe ; that the crop never fails ; that new wine sells 
from the vineyard for a quarter of a dollar the gallon ; that the 
cask costs eleven cents per gallon, and the wine is worth half a 
dollar the second year, when ready for bottling ; but with the 
brandy, is sold by retail, when bottled, from $1.00 to $9.00 the 
dozen, and in some cases the sparkling wines are sold for 812.00 
or $15.00 per .dozen. Fair Port, and wine from the Burgundy 
grape, may be bought in the cask from sixty to seventy cents 
per gallon. 

Considerable wine is sent to Germany to reinforce the poor 
wines of the Rhine. The vineyards on the foot hills have the 
preference for flavor. 

Wine is fast becoming one of the great staples of California. 
The age of agriculture succeeds the age of gold, and the three 
W's, — Wheat, Wine and Woollens, — are in the ascendant, while 
the three F's, — Furs, Forests and Fisheries, — predominate in 
Alaska and British Columbia. • 

We call again on Mr. Ralston, the manager of the Bank of 
California, the chief banking institution of this city, and the advo- 
cate of specie, which exerts a great influence over the State. 
The banking house, a large and handsome stone building, stands 
on California Street, the Wall Street or State Street of the 



41 The Ocerland Route to the Pacific. 

Pacific, whose structures compare well with those in cither of 
tlie streets of New York or Boston. 

On a raised platform in a counting-room, which overlooks a 
large banking-room, sits Mr. Ralston, the cashier, and answers 
promptly yes or no, to the applications for money, and his reply 
is decisive. 

Thirty-six clerks stand or write behind the counter of the 
bank, who draw on the average $175 a month in gold, and re- 
ceive $50 or $75 as a compliment on the first of January. 

Nearly all checks are paid and all deposits made in double 
eagles. Porters and clerks are constantly coming and going 
with bags of gold, and Chinese are counting and occasionally 
throwing out Mexican dollars. I have seen nothing like it for 
years in New York or Boston, and it is pleasant to see this young 
daughter of the Bay State setting so laudable an example to 
the mother and the sisters. 

I listen to an anecdote of a firm in the dry goods trade, 
which, in 1862, purchased in New York, goods to the amount 
of $200,000, on a long credit, to be paid in currency. The 
goods rose, and the debtors sold at a large profit in gold, which 
rose also in value. The New York creditors, disturbed by the 
war, offered a discount of twenty-five per cent, for the money. 

The $150,000 required was bought for $100,000 in gold, and 
the goods produced $300,000, and the proceeds invested in land, 
have since doubled. 

Such have been the inducements to California to adhere to 
specie. 

I am told by a lawyer that the Savings Banks of this city 
now have $16,000,(700 on deposit, lent at ten to twelve percent, 
on mortgage, and that most of the mechanics and most of the 
washerwomen are worth from $2,.000 to $20,000. 

At 4.40, P. M., Mr. Ralston calls with his carriage and takes 
us to the station. At Belmont we leave the cars for a light, 
tasteful omnibus that awaits us, and in five minutes, our party, 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 45 

wliicli has grown to a dozen, arc at the house of our liost, a 
spacious mansion, at least fifty yards in depth and width, with 
rooms for fifty guests. Each of us is shown to a suite of rooms, 
chamber, dressing-room, bath-room and appendages. 

At six we dine. In the evening a fire is lighted, as the night 
is cool, and we retire early, as we are to have a drive before 
breakfast. 

Belmont, August 29th. 

We are called early to coffee, toast and eggs. At 7.30, A. 
M., we walk to the stables, which have stalls for more than forty 
horses, and there ten of us take seats in an open California 
carriage, with four horses. Our host, still in the prime of life, 
takes the reins, invites me to sit beside him, and away we go, 
across the country at the rate of ten to twelve miles per hour. 
We drive through wheat fields, beside hills covered with ever- 
green oaks, through the grounds of Mr. Hay ward, who has 
recently sold his gold mine for $800,000, and pass through his 
stable of redwood, with a Gothic roof, whose rafters and beams 
are gilded. 

Mr. Ralston stops in his garden to gather fresh plums and 
pears, and tells the gardener who assists him to say, that if Mr. 
H. does not appreciate them, we do. 

After a drive through the pleasure grounds of Messrs. Parrot 
and Whipple, and ascending a fine eminence by a winding road, 
for a prospect, we return to breakfast. On our way, our host 
points out a tract of eleven hundred acres, bought by Mr. Bur- 
lingame, the Chinese Envoy, last year, for $55 the acre, which 
would now sell for $250. 

We return to breakfast at 10, A. M., and in an hour we find 
our carriage, with fresh horses, again at the door. Lord Cecil 
has joined us, and again we are in rapid motion. 

We visit the grounds of Mr. T. R. Selby, who invites us to 
examine his two acres of almond-trees, which resemble our 



46 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

largest peach-trees, and are now in full bearing. We pass a cac- 
tus, at least eight feet high, in the open air, and enter a garden 
devoted to grapes, fruit-trees and vegetables. In this enclosure 
of seven acres, says Mr. Selby, " the trees were out but six 
years, and last year gave us 1,400 bushels of fruit, most of 
which perished, as we could not use it, and the market was 
flooded." 

Here were greenhouse grapes of many kinds, figs, walnuts, 
plums, peaches, pears and apples. Lawton blackberries, with 
luscious fruit, tall celery, gigantic cauliflower. 

One gentleman comes to us with a fresh stripped fig, another 
with several kinds of plums, another with sprigs laden with 
blackberries, others with pears and peaches — all insist that we 
must eat. We are in the Garden of Eden, and tempted as Eve 
never could have been, by our warm-hearted friends. 

We would have had the scene photographed, to exhibit the 
fruits and hospitality of California. 

As I would not venture to eat much fruit, Mr. Selby says he 
will send me a box to take home with me, a promise he fully 
redeemed. At his house I meet some of the fair ladies of the 
country. 

On the grounds of Mr. Atherton one of our party measures 
the smooth and thrifty bough of an apple-tree, one inch and an 
eighth in thickness, which has ninety-nine apples on a length of 
three feet, and several feet of new wood at its extremity. 

And here I recognize the virtues of alkali, for I am told the 
sage bush has grown and alkali been traced in California. 

The bark of the apple-tree shows the power of soda and pot- 
ash. 

We enter the grounds of the Messrs. Barons, late owners of 
the quicksilver mines at Almaden, an English family, which 
left England for religious freedom, and has realized wealth by 
mining. Elcre a rill has been led from the foot hills, through 
pipes, and in the dry season an English lawn, of intense green, 
is before us. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 47 

Evergreen oaks and Australian firs throw tlieir shade over a 
trout pond. Dahlias are luxuriant, and vistas open for fine 
prospects across beautiful pleasure-grounds. 

After an excursion which occupies five hours so pleasantly, 
we leave our host behind, and return at 4, P. M., to dress for 
dinner, and meet him at G, P. M., at the table, with several new 
guests, some of whom are senators and members of Congress. 

At 7, P. M., he returns with us to San Francisco, and lands 
us safely at our hotel. 

August 30th. 

Mr. Alvord kindly takes us out this morn for a drive along 
the south-eastern side of the harbor ; points out the dry-dock, 
scooped from the rock, where two vessels can be repaired at 
once, and shows us the first rolling-mill of the Pacific, where 
old rails and scrap iron are renovated. Its capacity is now 
limited, but the site is excellent and the works may be expanded, 
and will be very useful. Thence we drive rapidly through new 
streets, and beside the tall lupins and other wild flowers, so well 
pictured by Fremont, to the cliffs, near the Golden Gates, a 
favorite resort of the citizens. Here California has preserved 
some of the gifts of nature — a great number of seals and sea- 
lions, which are seen disporting in their native element, climb- 
ing the rocks and shaking the spray from their sides, upon the 
sea-weed. 

You pass through the Cliflf House to a long piazza in the 
rear, and within twenty rods you see large rocks, like those of 
Nahant, rising from the sea, and seals and sea-lions rolling and 
gambolling upon them without fear or disturbance, to the great 
amusement of both young and old. Compared with this, our 
deer park hides its diminished head and loses its attractions. 

Returning from the cliff, we ride \»th Mr. Denman to the 
Lincoln Grammar School, before which stands a statue of Lin- 
coln. It is a large structure, with 22 rooms and a hall, 
together accommodating 1,250 pupils with separate seats. 



48 The Overland Route to the Pacljic. 

The assistants are ladies, whose salaries are from $800 to 
$=900, and the reading, responses, writing and drawing of the 
boys do credit to their teachers — the boys look healthful, and 
the percentage of absentees is less than five per cent. Thence 
to the Denman School, for eight hundred girls, with fourteen 
rooms, and here we are struck with the reading, writing and 
map-drawing. 

Lieutenant-Commander Blake has gone to the navy-yard, 
but my young friend. Lord Cecil, and I are called upon for 
brief addresses, and the young ladies sing to the piano. Mr. 
Denman tells us that half of them have pianos at home. 

A part of the morning still remains, and I accompany a gen- 
tleman to a woollen mill, near the forts and opposite to the Isle of 
Alcantraz, passing high bluffs on the way, already fast yield- 
ing to the advance of population. My wish is to see the Chinese 
at their toils. Here a capital of $450,000 has been planted in 
substantial brick buildings, and makes fair returns ; and liere 
one hundred skilled artisans and one hundred and fifty Chinese 
are assembled, and when trade is active these numbers are 
nearly doubled. 

The company make very soft and white blankets, affghans 
and robes for sleighs and open carriages, flannels of various 
patterns, colors and figures, and woollen skirts. The dyeing 
and other difficult work falls to the skilled artisans, who receive 
$3, while the Chinese draw but $1 per day, in gold, and do the 
weaving, spinning, sewing and rough work of the factory. The 
wool comes from the sheep of California, and is bought for 
twenty-one cents a pound. It is in part half-blood Merino, iu 
part Leicestershire and Southdown. ^ 

The foreman of the factory is from Massachusetts, where he 
was trained in factories at Andover and Salisbury. In our walk 
he points out to me tin cSses of peanut oil from China, which 
costs eighty-five cents a gallon, and is considered preferable to 
lard or mineral oil. In its taste it resembles salad oil. If Mar- 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 49 

seilles can convert the peanuts of Africa, and Providence the 
cotton-seed of the South into olives by their alchemy, and both 
peanuts and cotton-seed abound here, while olives grow at Los 
Angelos, why may we not throw ofif our dependence for sweet 
oil on France and Italy ? 

I learn that last year California produced twelve millions and 
this year will yield fourteen million pounds of wool. The ewes 
drop their lambs in February, and are sheared early in the 
season. 

In the autumn the sheep are sheared again and the lambs are 
sheared also, as a preventive against scab. The average yield 
is from four to five pounds. 

The foreman speaks of his acquaintance. Colonel Hollister, 
who in 1852 crossed the mountains with twelve hundred sheep, 
losing a third of them before he reached the coast. He pur- 
chased ranches, and his sheep increased and now number sixty- 
four thousand, in thirty-two flocks, each under the care of a 
shepherd. 

His sales of wool, wethers and lambs are said to reach 
$100,000 yearly, and his flocks still increase. As land rises, he 
sells his ranches for wheat and vineyards, and buys others 
further south. He is now one of the millionaires of the 
country. 

In the evening I visit my friend, Mr. Joseph Perry, Jr., 
formerly well known in State Street, Boston, who now lives 
pleasantly in San Francisco. 

In the course of the day, I meet Mr. Glidden, of the Boston 
firm of Glidden & Williams, who arrived yesterday in seven 
days from Boston, and assures me that he felt more vigorous on 
his arrival, than when he left home. 

In the course of the evening, I meet Mr. Fay, a cousin of 

Colonel Fay of Chelsea, near Boston, who brings me some 

specimens of a second crop of barley, raised by irrigation, a few 

miles from the city. His friend, a gentleman from Chili, after 

7 



50 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

taking a crop of sixty bushels of this grain from an acre, con- 
ceived the idea of irrigating the land as they did in Cliili. 

The water was let on early in August, and the crop reaped in 
October ; the yield was 6,200 pounds of grain, or more than a 
hundred and ten bushels. Where, I ask, are the limits of the 
fertility of this strange country, already one of the chief grana- 
ries of the world ? 

We hear of our defeat in the boat-race, but in our race with 
England for this fine country a few years since, we were more 
successful. We won a prize that is becoming daily more valu- 
able. 

In the evening I call on a noted chemist, who had analyzed 
the alkali of the plains a few years since, and found the resid- 
uum like that of sea-water, chiefly chloride of sodium, soda, 
potash, lime and magnesia. 

Tuesday, August 31st. 

My companions, who are soon to cross the ocean, are impa- 
tient to return, and Lord Cecil leaves this morn for the mines 
of Grass Valley and the famous Comstock Ledge, proposing to 
meet Mr. Blake at Virginia City, and to join me on Friday at 
Reno, on the Central Pacific. 

With Mr. Blake I visit the office and works of the San Fran- 
cisco Assay and Refining Company, where gold and silver from 
the mines are reduced to bars and stamped for exportation. 

The capacity of these works, owned chiefly by the Bank of 
California, is sufficient to refine a quarter of a million in gold, 
and one-tenth of that amount of silver, daily, and their assay 
and stamps are respected both in Asia and Europe. They rival 
the mint in the extent of their operations, and their skilled 
artisans earn eight dollars a day. 

We trace gold and silver ores, through crucibles, acids and 
baths to the solid ingots, which are cast in our presence, and 
near the works observe a marsh, converted by Chinese irrigation 
into a verdant garden. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 51 

We confer with Mr. Cohen, a gentleman conversant with 
land, to whom we are referred by Mr. Ralston, as to the value 
of the land granted by Congress to the Central Pacific line. He 
informs us that a part is covered with timber of growing value, 
a part fit for cultivation, a part for pasturage, and much of it is 
in alkali plains. Without water he rates the value at half a 
dollar per acre, but triples it if water shall be found accessible, 
and thinks it may possibly command a higher price, as land has 
taken many sudden flights in value in this country. Mr. Colien 
gives us the distance by the new Western Pacific Railway from 
Sacramento to the ferries of Oakland and Alameda at one hun- 
dred and twenty-four miles, and the more circuitous route by 
San Jose as forty-sis miles longer. He informs us that the 
Western Pacific is pledged for $2,500,000 to government, 
but has issued no mortgage bonds and is held principally 
by Messrs. Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crockers, who 
control the Central Pacific Railway also. 

During an interview with Captain Eldridge, the agent of the 
mail steamers to China, I learn that the last steamship brought 
seventy-five cabin passengers at 1250, and seven hundred 
Chinese, with considerable tea at $15 per measurement ton. 

The line from New York via Panama brings usually five 
hundred emigrants, a few cabin passengers and full freights, bv 
each steamer ; the rate for goods not charged by the foot is re- 
duced to a cent and a half a pound in gold, equivalent, with in- 
surance, interest and other charges, to two and a half cents in 
currency, by the railway. 

I devote some hours to calls on eminent physicians, to ascer- 
tain the prospects for a young kinsman, and have a pleasant 
talk with Senator Stewart of Nevada. 

Wednesday, September 1st. 

My agreeable companion, Lieutenant-Commander Blake, 
leaves this morn for Virginia City, and I confer with Mr. Gray, 



52 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

the consulting engineer of the Central Pacific Railway, who 
tells me that his line must go to Ogdcn, either by the track of 
the Union or by its own track, which in his opinion could be 
completed for less than three millions. He gives me many facts 
relating to the line, and satisfies me that Promontory is no 
place for a connection. 

In the course of the day, I call on Mr. J. P. Raymond, a 
flour merchant, to whom I have letters of introduction, and 
stop on the way to admire bags of very large potatoes and 
onions, whose price is but seventy-five cents per cental. 

Mr. Raymond shows me some Santa Clara flour, very white 
and fine, which he thinks equal to Plant's brand of St. Louis 
flour, and might sometimes be sent to Boston at the rate of two 
and a half cents a pound. 

Wheat can be raised with profit in California at $1.25 per 
cental. "With wheat at this rate and flour at a corresponding 
rate of 14.50 a barrel, California flour could be sold in China 
for the price of rice, and the consumption would absorb the 
whole surplus of the coast. 

Ships taking flour to Shanghai or Japan at sixty cents per 
barrel, might return with sugar or with tea at five or six dol- 
lars per measurement ton, and vessels taking coal to China and 
Japan might take rice, tea or sugar to San Francisco, and then 
load with wheat at ninety cents the cental for Europe. 

I learn that business is for the moment depressed in Cali- 
fornia, that the earthquake checked building, and led some 
Eastern capitalists to withdraw their funds, which are now be- 
ginning to return, and this has led to a call on the Secretary of 
the Treasury for a transfer of credits from New York to San 
Francisco. 

The city suScrs from a trade-union of the housewrights, who 
require ^\.Q0 in gold for eight hours' work, which the builders 
decline to pay. With wages at $2.25 in currency in Chicago 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 53 

for ten hours' work, they cannot long conthiuc at the present 
rates in San Francisco. 

I learn from Mr. Glidden that the Chinese are going into the 
copper mines, which will not pay at the rate of American labor, 
and that Flint and Peabody are, with Chinese labor, converting 
yearly 7,000 bales of Manilla grass into cordage. 

I pass the evening in pleasant conversation with Senator 
Stewart and Governor Stanford, discussing the prospects of the 
Central Pacific line. 

I inquire as to the Beckwith pass, across the Sierra Nevada, 
which lies fourteen hundred feet below the present summit of 
the line. They tell me it has been surveyed and found imprac- 
ticable, from interlocking cliffs, deep ravines and frequent 
freshets of the Feather River, beside which it would have led to 
a circuit of a hundred miles to reach the Truckee River, and 
to a run of forty miles through the snow region. The governor 
states also, that the snow-sheds have generally cost seventeen 
thousand dollars a mile, and for a few miles, some designed 
to shield the line from avalanches, have cost seventy thousand 
dollars a mile. 

These gentlemen give me an account of the wheat culture in 
California. In one district the wheat fields are continuous for 
fifty miles. One man, a Mr. M., came here four years since, 
with five thousand dollars. Converting it into paper, he bought 
college land scrip, (possibly that of Massachusetts,) at seventy- 
five cents, and sowed wheat on the land purchased. 

"With one team of six horses, with a gang-plough, he could 
take care of five hundred acres, and he went boldly into culti- 
vation. He now has one hundred and thirty thousand acres, 
seventeen thousand of them in wheat, and will have thirty 
thousand in wheat next year, and holds his land at twenty 
dollars or more an acre. 

Thus are sudden fortunes made here, and I hear from others, 



54: The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

of not less than twenty capitalists who have retired from trade, 
whose fortunes are rated from one to three millions each. 

The course of trade is changing. Money has been dear, and 
the receipts of goods irregular ; large fortunes have been made 
by men who have watched the markets, and as stocks were re- 
duced, bought up the residue to make cent, per cent, profits. 
The railways will bring regular supplies and more steady prices. 

We may well anticipate that merchants will come here with 
capital ; that warehouses will be built at Oakland and Alameda, 
to store tea, coffee, sugar, rice and wool, near the tracks, and 
large importations be made and held for inland consumption. 
That the merchants of Chicago, St. Paul and St. Louis will 
watch the course of prices, and as they fluctuate buy on the 
Atlantic or Pacific, sending their orders by telegraph. 

Thursday, September 2d. 

This morn Governor Stanford tells me that the Central freight 
engines will take ten loaded freight cars over the summit, and 
then run with twenty cars, and I was confirmed on my conclu- 
sion, that the Central line may average fifteen and the Union 
Pacific twenty cars or more in their daily routine of duty. 

Desirous to see Oakland, the future terminus of the Pacific 
lines, and to pay my promised visit to Dr. Merritt, I take the 
ferry-boat this morn and run across the harbor. A train of cars 
awaits us at the end of a long pier, four miles from the city, 
and we soon reach a large tract of land rising gradually from a 
plain to a gentle eminence, admirably adapted for gardens or a 
commercial city. 

The train stops every mile, and three miles from the landing 
I take a coach, which soon carries me to the seat of my friend, 
and here on the height of land, I find forty acres of pleasure 
grounds, studded with fruit-trees and vines and ornamental 
pines and firs, to which Europe and Australia have contributed. 



I 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 55 

and along a street bordering on the enclosure, six or eight fine 
residences, which my friend has erected. 

I am kindly received and shown the prospect from the cupola, 
a fine view across pleasure grounds, to a portion of tlie harhor, 
which resembles a lake walled in from the sea, and have a 
charming view of the peninsula. 

This property, under the influence of the railway, is progress- 
ing in value, and I learn from a third party that three hundred 
thousand dollars has been offered for the homestead. 

And now I must bid adieu to the Pacific, to this land of fruit 
and breadstuffs, now bound to the Atlantic States by indissolu- 
ble bonds of iron, by rail and telegraph. If I were a young 
man I should be tempted to cast anchorage and identify my 
fortunes with California. 

Returning to the Lick House, I dine with Professor Horsford 
and his fair daughter, and at four o'clock, P. M., embark in the 
good steamer Yosemite for Sacramento, where I am to take the 
cars next morn at six o'clock on the Central Pacific. 

A week later and the Western Pacific, on which the company 
is fast laying the rails, would have reduced my passage from 
fourteen hours to four, and save me nearly half a day on the 
journey ; but I find good company and a pleasant state-room, 
and a box of fruit from Mr. Selby, the newly elected mayor, 
awaits me at the steamer landing, and is safely placed in my 
state-room. During the evening a fruit-dealer tells me that he 
is going East to visit his parents and arrange for the shipment 
of fruit ; that he proposes to pack his choice grapes in sawdust, 
and thinks they can be placed in the cars at six cents and de- 
livered in Eastern cities at twelve or thirteen cents per pound. 

Sacramento, Friday, September 3(1. 

After a good night's rest in my state-room, I secure berths and 
seats for myself and friends in a silver palace car to Promon- 



56 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

tory for five dollars eacli, and at six, A. M., start for horns, with 
some seventy passengers. 

For twenty-six miles we pass by vineyards and wheat fields, 
and then begin the ascent of the foot hills, then of the Sierra, 
and in eighty miles we rise with ruling gradients of eighty-six 
to one hundred and sixteen feet per mile to the summit, with 
snow-clad hills around us. We catch many charming views 
down deep ravines, and then descend by Lake Downer, which 
we see a thousand feet below us, to tlie Truckee Valley. On 
our way we pass through some fifteen short tunnels, over eight 
bridges, chiefly of substantial trestle work, across ravines and 
through some thirty-five sections of snow-sheds, separated by 
tunnels, bridges or openings. 

Great pains have been taken to avoid detention by snow or 
avalanches in the spring or winter. 

At Reno, Lord Cecil and Lieut. Commander Blake join me. 
I learn from them that the mines of Grass Valley do well under 
improved processes for extraction, and that at the Comstock 
Ledge the yield of the year will probably reach nine millions. 

Saturday, September 4th. 

Among our companions is an intelligent trader from White 
Pine, who has been to purchase stores ; he assures me that the 
silver ore is rich, and in his opinion continuous in many mines, 
although some of it is found in large chimneys. He also states 
that stamp mills, and aqueducts from the mountains, are in 
progress, and that there is little doubt the yield of silver will, 
by January, rise to half a million per month. 

We breakfast at Elcho, the future capital of Nevada, where 
we see several fine stages, each with six horses, ready to start 
for White Pine. Our seventy passengers, by accessions at 
Reno and Elcho, have now grown to a hundred. 

The road is in fine order, if we except thirty-five miles be- 
yond ElchOj which will require more ballast before winter, and 



The Occrland Route to the Pacijic. 57 

it will be well to imbed the tracks over the Sierra more deeply 
ill the gravel, as some ties were destroyed by the burning snow- 
sheds. We examine the line from the rear platfrom on sections 
previously passed in the niglit, and notice, that with three ex- 
ceptions, the station-houses and engine-houses of the Central 
Pacific are of wood. The buildings of the Union Pacific are 
of brick or stone. We find the track and road-bed in excellent 
condition. 

We reach Promontory at 11 o'clock P. M., before the Eastern 
train, which is a few hours late, and start two hours late for the 
East. The state of things at this point and the waste of two 
hours' time by each train, the confusion that attends the inter- 
change in the open air, with no building near us, except those 
under canvass, which are fortunately in a dry climate, shows 
the importance of an early adjustment of all questions be- 
tween the companies and the erection of a proper station at 
Ogdeu. 

Sunday, September 5th. 

We start again in our new train with berths in Pullman cars 
at 2, A. M., and after breakfast take our places again with 
several engineers on the rear platform. Here the new road 
obviously requires surfacing and widening. The track, it is 
true, is smooth and safe for the present, but the earth from the 
embankment has been thrown up for ballast. Rain here is rare, 
and the material of fair quality, but some surfacing remains to 
be done, which can be now done more cheaply than when the 
track was laid. Several steam shovels are by the roadside. 
Mormons are ready with their teams to take up materials from 
the sides at twenty cents per yard ; a great reduction from the 
contract prices, and gravel trains may now be employed to 
advantage in surfacing. 

As we cross Green River, we notice an extensive basin en- 
circled by mountains, with a narrow outlet, and here it would 
seem that a dam may at some future day form a great 
8 



58 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

water-power, aud flow back the water or raise it by pumps for 
irrigation. 

Monday, September Cth. 

We again pass the Laramie Plains and breakfast at the 
Laramie liotel, and meet our friend, Dr. Latham, who accom- 
panies us to Cheyenne, and as we ascend the summit, points out 
Pike's Peak, Mount Agassiz and other snow-clad mountains and 
the perpetual snow-line, five thousand feet above us. 

At Sherman the pastures are green, and we see three bands 
of antelopes near the summit. Again we are struck with the 
skilful engineering by whicli the line has been piloted through 
ravines, and along the mountain side without tunnels or heavy 
cuts in rock or high embankments. 

At Cheyenne we meet a band of music, on a staging erected 
in a huge wagon. Here is a county meeting to congratulate 
a newly-elected officer, and here our train receives a considerable 
accession from Denver. We number at least one hundred and 
twenty passengers, and launch again upon the plains. From 
the Sherman summit for at least one hundred miles, I am struck 
with the superior quality of the gravel, disintegrated granite, 
fit for a gravel walk, admirably suited for the surface of the 
road. If gravel is not found further east, the track might be 
raised a foot by sand from the plains, and a coating of but four 
inches of gravel over the sand would make an excellent ballast. 
Seven hundred tons of gravel could be sent out on a train over 
descending grades, and one train would give surface to half a 
mile of railway, and three or four gravel trains could do the 
work in a twelvemonth. 

As we pass over the plains I fall into conversation with Mr. 
Edwards, a very intelligent merchant, who is now but ten days 
from Vancouver's Island. He is a native of England, but has 
married in the United States. He tells me the Province has 
sulfercd from the decay of commerce since the Treaty of Re- 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 59 

ciprocity was repealed ; that it has great resources in its timber, 
and seeks for commerce with the Union ; that in that Province 
two fifteen-pound sahnon can be bought for a bit, or twelve and 
a half cents, and fine halibut of thirty to one hundred and fifty 
pounds, at one cent a pound ; that the sea, when he left, was 
almost alive with candle fish and herring, and one boat from 
the shore had harpooned eleven whales. On our Atlantic 
front the salmon and lialibut are two to four days on their 
way from the fishing grounds, in vessels packed with ice, to 
Boston. 

Thence they are distributed, summer and winter, through the 
great cities of the Atlantic States. A propeller could, in three 
days, run down from Vancouver's Island to the terminus of the 
Central Pacific, at Oakland, and deliver her fish in ice, not at 
Boston prices, viz., twelve or fifteen cents per pound for halibut, 
and thirty to fifty cents for salmon, but at three cents per pound 
for each of them, and in four days more these fish could be dis- 
tributed through the valley of the Missouri and Mississippi, and 
in winter the frozen and smoked fish could be distributed 
through the country. 

On the Atlantic front, nearly two hundred thousand tons 
of fresh, dry, smoked and pickled fish are annually landed 
for consumption. Why may not half that quantity be landed 
on our Pacific shores, from more prolific fisheries, and three- 
fourths of that amount be sent eastward by the Pacific Rail- 
ways ? 

We meet, also, Mr. Jacobs, a stage proprietor from Colorado, 
who tells us that the branch from Denver to Cheyenne, for half 
its length, viz., to Evans, will be finished this year, and the res- 
idue next year, and I subsequently learn from the Secretary of 
the Board of Trade of Denver that forty thousand cattle will be 
killed and shipped during the fall and winter from Colorado to 
Omaha, on their way to Chicago, and bring $240 a carload to 
the Union Pacific Raihvay. This must add at least $400,000 



60 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

to the revenue of the Union Pacific line, and will be a new 
accession to the trade of Chicago.* 

Tuesday, September 7th. 

We breakfast at Grand Isle, an important station, notice good 
grass on the plains, and luxuriant meadows below Kearney. 
At Columbus we pass the proposed terminus of a branch from 
Sioux City on the extension of the line from Duluth on Lake 
Superior, through St. Paul and Mankato to Sioux City. This 
branch will bring Columbus, on the Union Pacific, ninety-two 
miles west of Omaha, within five hundred miles of the naviga- 
ble waters of Lake Superior, and within three hundred and 
fifty miles of the great lumber mart and saw-mills of St. Paul, 
and the Falls of St. Anthony. Lumber worth ten dollars at St. 
Paul may be delivered at Columbus at less than twenty dollars 
per thousand, almost as cheap as at Chicago. The iron of Lake 
Superior may be sent with it, and return loads of wheat, cattle, 
fruit, fish and minerals from Colorado may be sent back to 
Lake Superior. This connection must give great advantages to 
the Union Pacific, in any rivalry with the Kansas Pacific, and 
enable it to supply that line with lumber. 

Mr. Jacobs states that large droves of cattle are driven to 
Colorado from Texas, where steers are sold for eight or ten dol- 
lars each. These are fattened on the plains and then driven 
across the mountains to California, and this is subsequently con- 
firmed by a gentleman from California, who states that prior to 
1864, Spanish cattle were sold in California for the value of 
their hides and tallow, that the rains failed so that drought 
destroyed a large portion of their stock, and that steers worth 
five cents east of the mountains now sell for nine cents a pound, 
on the hoof, in California. 

It is obvious to me that a cattle train might be run from 

* See Appendix. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 61 

Cheyenne to Sacramento, or even down to Oakland for $100 or 
$500 per car, with benefit to both the railways. We make up 
an hour of our lost time, pass a branch to the Missouri at Fre- 
mont, and reach Omaha at 2, P. M., — in less than five days 
from the Pacific. 

Desirous to send home specimens of Mr. Selby's fruit, I take 
my box to the office of the United States Express Company, 
pay their price of ten cents per pound, and beg them to deliver 
it as soon as it arrives, — as it may in seven days from the Pa- 
cific, and to mark fruit upon it; but all my care is unavailing. 
This dilatory express company takes six days for its delivery, 
and on the eleventh day from San Francisco most of the plums 
and pears have perished. Enough, however, survive this 
neglect to convince my friends that fruit may be sent in six 
days from California to Boston. 

At Omaha we meet an assemblage of railway men ; the vice- 
president and superintendent of the Central Pacific, the offi- 
cials of the Union Pacific, Messrs. Morris of Philadelphia, and 
tiie Messrs. Pullman of Chicago. Mr. Ames, the president of 
the Union Pacific, is also expected. 

And here I learn that the Union Pacific has on its line, sixty 
thousand cords of wood, contracted for before the coal mines 
were opened, and costing about ten dollars a cord, and now to 
be superseded by cheap and excellent coal. The substitution 
of the latter must reduce two-thirds the cost of fuel. Much of 
this wood may be sold or used for kindling, but it would do 
the line injustice if we should carry the extra cost of this wood 
into our estimate of the cost of transportation. It was pur- 
chased on a large scale to expedite the enterprise, under a 
former administration. 

Wednesday, September 8th. 
This morning I have a conference with the officials of the 
two lines, as to the rates of freight and fare, and the policy of 
running faster trains, both of freight and passengers. 



62 The Overland Boute to the Pacific. 

The time from the Pacific to Omaha will at once be reduced 
twelve hours, by the completion of the Western Pacific. A fast 
train, with emigrant cars attached, will, by October, run 
through weekly, in less than six days between New York and 
San Francisco; but it is deemed wise for the residue of the 
year, to allow six and a half days, for the regular passenger 
trains, while the road is green, so that in case of detention they 
may have it in their power to make up time, and preserve their 
connections. 

It is proposed, also, to put on fast freight trains, for fruit and 
express matter, and send with them the second-class passengers 
and emigrants. Although there are unsettled questions between 
the two lines, the superintendents appear to act in perfect har- 
mony. Unity of action and good-fellowship will be most con- 
ducive to the success of these enterprises. Each day saved 
will increase the travel, for each day gained will save the 
passenger in time, meals and lodgings, at least twelve dol- 
lars. 

In the afternoon my companions leave me for Chicago, where 
I hope to join them ; they thus gain time for young Cecil to 
visit the machine shops at Hannibal and Aurora. I remain a 
day to confer with Mr. Ames, and towards evening walk with 
Mr. Parker, of Omaha, to the top of the bluffs above the city. 
Here we find the first State House or Capitol of Nebraska, now 
resigned to the city for a college. It stands in a commanding 
position, overlooks the whole city, the opposite heights of Coun- 
cil Bluffs, and the valley of the Missouri. The city is beneath 
us on two terraces, with streets a hundred feet wide, crossing 
each other, some of which ascend the bluffs. It is already 
nearly two miles long by half a mile in width, and new houses 
are in progress. 

A grove of fine young trees stands behind the college. We 
enter the grounds of Dr. Lowe, an old resident, and find his 
house embowered in trees, and his garden full of grapes, plums, 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 63 

pears and peaches, a little later in tlieir ripening than those of 
California, for we are here a thousand feet above the sea. 

During the evening, having made objections to the weight of 
the Pullman cars, I am invited by Mr. Pullman to hear his 
views on the subject. 

He urges that safety in case of collisions is secured by strong 
and substantial cars ; that the weight is divided upon twelve 
wheels, under two tracks or bogies ; that the length, closets and 
bedding insure space and comfort, but necessarily increase 
weight ; and that the cars are popular, run full, and the public 
cheerfully pay for safety and comfort ; and if the trains do not 
run as faot as some in Europe, the passengers need not stop 
for meals or lodging ; that in all cases, the railway companies 
hold half the stock in his cars and divide the profits, which 
average seventeen per cent. 

The weight of a train of four Pullmans, a baggage car and 
a dining car, without passengers, is not far from a hundred 
and fifty tons, without engine and tender. Should we ever ap- 
ply the power now used, to a light English express train, we 
may possibly accomplish the journey from sea to sea, in three 
and a half days, or at the rate between London and Liverpool, 
and then balance despatch against comfort. It may be that 
comfort will turn the scale in favor of Pullman. 

He is very popular with the ladies. At present the cost of a 
passage from Boston to the Pacific is $153 in paper, equivalent 
to $112 in gold, and the extra cost of berths and meals is equiv- 
alent to about five dollars per day in gold. 

Thursday, September 9th. 

The train of the Chicago and Northwestern, by which Mr. 
Ames is expected, is behind time, and I accompany Mr. Nichols 
across the river, to confer with General Dodge, the able and ex- 
perienced engineer of the company. It is indebted to him and 
his corps of oflficers, for its excellent route through a wilderness. 



64 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

Wc pass the " bottoms " where the wild sunflower stands 
ftine feet high, giving proof of the strength of the soil. We 
gather its seeds as we sit in our open carriage. We rise gradu- 
ally thirty feet above the river bank to Council Bluffs, where 
the ascent still continues. 

General Dodge occupies a modest, vine-covered cottage, and 
still suffers from a wound received in the war. His heart is in 
the Union Pacific, and he has evinced his confidence by large 
investments in its stock and bonds. 

He thinks a branch of 853 miles should be made from Gran- 
ger, 877 miles west of Omaha, to Portland, in Oregon. This 
would fall into the valley of the Snake River and open a route 
to Montana, and bring the chief seaport of Oregon within 2,218 
miles of Chicago. 

I find it would also bring it within 2,140 miles of Lake 
Superior, via Columbus and Sioux City. 

General Dodge has found a line through the Beckworth pass 
which he thinks may eventually be opened. 

At the present moment the Californians are busy making a 
line to Oregon, in or near the valley of the Sacramento, and 
another up the valley of the St. Joachim. These will open a 
fertile and populous country, and inure to the benefit of both 
companies. 

The possibility of effecting the other improvements and of 
making other lines across the mountains, may best be used to 
effect a union of the Union and Central lines under one organi- 
zation, a measure which would benefit the country and add to 
the strength and efficiency of botli enterprises. 

General Dodge estimates the amount due from the Central 
line and from government, and the surplus property of the 
Union Pacific at the close of August, as not far from eight mil- 
lions. From this the cost of completion and floating debt are 
to be deducted. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 65 

He thinks the Union Pacific has some advantages over the 
Central line. Easier grade, bolder curves, abundance of coal, 
no undulations in its gradients, a long and easy descent across 
the plains, and less snow in winter. 

On the other side I should place more ballast, more timber, 
more fruit, fish and local business on the Central. Each line 
has its good qualities and advantages and may well enter into 
close alliance with the other. 

As Mr. Ames has not arrived and I have nearly accomplished 
my mission, I conclude to take the cars for Chicago, via St. 
Joseph and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railway. The 
route is longer than that by the Chicago and Northwestern, but 
the rates are the same, and after a hearty dinner I again cross 
the river and take the cars at 4, P. M., with some sixty passen- 
gers bound for St. Joseph, Chicago, Louisville and St. Louis. 

With a young gentleman from New York, I succeed in ob- 
taining the last section and two last berths in the sleeping car, 
for which we pay the reduced rate of a dollar and a half each. 

Our route is along the intervales of the river, rich bottom 
lands in high grass or corn. The line has been made at small 
expense by throwing up the soil and leaving a ditch on either 
side, often filled with water from recent rains. At some points 
it has been overflowed and settled and a strong force is bringing 
it up to grade. It requires gravel and increased width of road- 
bed, otherwise the track will soon be injured and speed 
diminished. 

A farmer, at least six feet two inches high, whose ruddy face 
and well rounded form show that fortune has smiled on him, 
sits near me. After an absence of twenty years from Kentucky, 
he is returning with his wife and child from Monterey, California, 
to visit his kindred. 

He tells me that he thought many did not take land enough 
to enable them to live comfortably, but that he had taken two 
thousand acres, for a stock farm, which cost him five dollars an 
9 



66 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

acre ; that he fcncctl it with red wood, which stood well after it 
had been down for thirteen years ; that his land was now worth 
fifty dollars an acre. 

That from June to October, cows required some green food 
to keep them in milk, and this may account for the fact that 
California still draws from the East its cheese and butter. 

His neighbors plough six acres a day with a team of six 
horses and sower and harrow attached to a gang-plough with 
three shares, and thus one man ploughs, sows and covers his 
grain. 

When he has sown his seed he engages aid, either changing 
work or hiring men, and puts on a header and three wagons, 
and cuts thirty acres of wheat per day, and stacks the heads in 
the field, and then engages a portable mill to thresh and sack 
the grain at ten or fifteen cents a bushel, and thus one man may 
cultivate three hundred to five hundred acres and gather ten 
or fifteen thousand bushels, and take a crop of volunteer grain 
in the succeeding year. 

He adds that sheep worth but $1.50 in Colorado are worth 
§3.50 at Monterey, and are often driven across the mountains. 
Here also is freight for the railways. 

A German" from Sonoma, California, distributes his grapes 
among the ladies, and invites us to taste bis Sonoma wine from 
the Burgundy grape. 

He informs us that the current price of good light wine in. 
Sonoma, the second year, is forty to sixty cents per gallon, and 
the vineyards are rapidly improving. 

Friday, September 10th. 

As our train is a little behind time, we are called to an early 
breakfast, on the Hannibal and St. Joseph line. 

Finding " quail " upon the card, I call for quail, but the quail 
of this country does not fly, but swim, and it comes to me with 
fins in place of wings, but deserves commendation. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 67 

TVe are now crossing a fertile section of Missouri, on the 
Hannibal and St. Joseph line, and find a good track and 
fine farms in grass and corn, and many brick and painted 
houses, often with groves around them. The corn, however, 
has suffered from a wet season. The road is in good condition, 
but ballasted with stone as large as eggs. "We pass many or- 
chards, cross the Mississippi by a noble bridge of stone and 
iron, and enter Quincy, a city of thirty-six thousand people, at 
10| o'clock in the morning. 

And here we find there is a break in the connection, and we 
have seven hours at our disposal, which I devote to my journal, 
to a walk through the city, and a visit to the machine-shops. 

The city is built on ground rising from the river. At the 
landing I find several steamers ; on the eminence a parade- 
ground and wide avenues with brick and stone stores and a large 
hotel, where at the early hour of 12|, P. M., I find an excellent 
dinner, — soup, several kinds of meat, a variety of vegetables, 
fruit, jelly, pastry and ice-cream. 

The city does credit to the distinguished family in Massachu- 
setts from which it derives its name, and is now nearly as large 
as Boston was when the elder Quincy begun the Quincy market, 
the first step in its progress from a provincial town to a flourish- 
ing city. 

The foreman of the machine-shop walks with me through the 
shops, points out his engines, draws attention to his steel tires, 
some from Krupp's Prussian Works, thinks they will run 500,- 
000 miles, and reduce cost of running. 

He has recently been over the whole of the Union Pacific, on 
a visit to officers transferred from the Chicago, Quincy and Bur- 
lington line. He has examined the coal, thinks the line will 
soon be run at less cost per mile than any line in the Western 
States, on account of the superiority of its coal, road-bed and 
climate. 

At Evanston, a mile and a half from the track, he found a 



68 The Overland Route to the Pacijic. 

vein of coal thirty feet thick, of good quality, with a track graded 
to it. He has been over the line on an engine, and considers it 
in its curves, gradients, coal and road-bed, the best line he has 
ever seen. 

Thinks the company has been a little extravagant in building 
much of it through the hills on embankments, and considers it 
in some respects superior to the C. Q. and B. line. 

I have soon a proof of the excellence of the latter line. At 
6.40, P. M., I enter the sleeping-car, and in twelve hours am 
landed at the station of the Illinois Central line in Chicago, 
after a pleasant run of two hundred and eighty-five miles. In 
the evening I watch from the rear platform the track, which is 
well ballasted and in good condition, and sleep pleasantly from 
9, P. M., until we enter the Illinois Central line, near Chicago, 
and here, such is the pressure of traffic, we are obliged, as at 
Montreal, to alight outside of the station, ample as are its 
dimensions. 

Twenty years since, when this station was in progress, I was 
a witness on the trial of a case as to the injury done to an estate 
by severance from its water-front by this station. The owner 
claimed large damages for injury, and I ventured to predict 
benefit in place of injury. The land he professed to think was 
ruined, is now worth $1,800 per foot of frontage, and occupied 
by a hotel. 

Saturday, September 11th. ' 

At the Sherman House this morn, I find Lieut. Commander 
Blake, and after breakfast take with him the cars of the Mich- 
igan Central for Niagara Falls. 

Having criticized the Pacific lines, I am led to examine again 
the road-bed of this excellent railway. I find its ties imbedded 
to the surface, but the width of its road rarely more than ten 
feet. And yet its track stands well. It sends its cars through 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 69 

with speed and promptitude ; has thirty-six trains daily on its 
single track, and has for twenty years never killed a passenger. 

We travel here with an intelligent dealer in live stock, from 
Council Bluffs, who thinks a cattle train across the mountains 
from the valley of the Platte would command a large number 
of cattle and horses at $500 per carload. "We meet, also, Mr. 
B., a very intelligent gentleman from Chicago, who tells me 
that the farmers of the Mississippi Valley find sheep unprofita- 
ble, and are replacing them with cattle. 

How can it be otherwise, when we place a higher duty on 
wool than we do on woollens, and compel the sheep-owners of 
the La Plata to sell their wool to England for five pence a pound. 

Is there not danger that we shall make them dairy farmers, 
when we compel them to sacrifice the pelts of their sheep to pay 
the cost of boiling them down for tallow ? 

Sunday, September 12th. 

"We breakfast, cross the river to the Clifton House, by the Sus- 
pension Bridge, and rejoin our young English friend. We then 
attend church at Drummondsville, and enjoy the magnificent 
spectacle of the waterfall. Its thunders are still heard, and its 
rushing waters are still viewed from the forests which line the 
banks of the cataract. 

Monday, September 13th. 

Lord Cecil leaves us for Montreal, and after an early break- 
fast, we take seats at 7, A. M., for Albany and Boston on a car 
of the New York Central line, the fast train having passed dur- 
ing the night. From Niagara to Rochester I inspect the track 
from the rear platform. 

The country through which we pass has a rich but moist soil, 
better adapted for agriculture than for railways, and the ballast, 
as the conductor tells me, has in some places been drawn sev- 
enty-five miles. The surface has been raised by successive lay- 



70 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

ers of earth and gravel. A gentleman tells me he has seen the 
road when trains could run on it but ten miles an hour ; they 
can now make forty, for the ties are well bedded and secured. 
They are, however, a foot shorter than on the Pacific lines, and 
the road-bed slopes from a point about one foot beyond the ends 
of the ties, towards the ditch. In the centre of the track the 
ballast is level with the surface of the tie, and then declines 
towards the end of the tie for drainage. 

Below Rochester, the road-bed widens at the surface to about 
twelve feet — measuring as I do, by the eye. It will be very easy 
to keep the Pacific lines in as good a condition as this line, and 
they are now nearly or quite as safe, for they have a better 
foundation. 

At Rochester we take seats in a long saloon-car. You enter 
at either end, through aisles with four state-rooms on each side, 
on one side for two persons, on the other for four. In the mid- 
dle of the car is a saloon of twelve by nine feet and a half, 
with sofas well padded, and revolving easy-chairs. There is 
room in the car for fifty passengers, but half the seats are occu- 
pied. For the use of this car we pay about two-thirds of a cent 
per mile. 

On our way east, we pass wheat, stubble, young orchards, 
corn and fields of broom-corn, pastures and meadows, and reach 
Albany by eight o'clock, P. M., and thence proceed by night car 
to Boston. We occupied in this car the last berth left, directly 
over the wheels, where the closets and wash-room are usually 
placed in the Pullman car, and here we were more jolted than 
on any portion of the line between the two oceans, although we 
caught a few hours' repose. We arrive in Boston at 6, A. M., on 
the morning of the 14th of September, after five weeks' absence. 

I have thus given my diary for the trip, recording my obser- 
vations and ray sources of information, and here it gives me 
pleasure to tender to the officers of all the lines I have trav- 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 71 

ersed, including Mr. Brydges, of the Grand Trunk, my acknowl- 
edgments for the facilities they have given, and the courtesies 
they have rendered. 

I have made this tour with a view to ascertain the condition, 
capacity and resources of the lines which connect the Atlantic 
and the Pacific, and to embody the results in my Report. The 
weather has been favorable, my associates have aided me, and no 
source of information has been closed against me, and I now 
submit my conclusions. 

Condition and Capacity of the Lines. 

The Union and Central Pacific lines will soon be completed, but 
the finishing touch is yet to be given. Some abutments are to be 
renewed, some ballasting to be added, some temporary stations 
to be replaced with stone, some wooden bridges with iron ; but 
the tracks are smooth and well laid, generally fish jointed ; the 
alignment, in most cases, excellent ; the gradients favorable, 
and the track so level and well sustained, that trains may 
run through the entire distance of eighteen hundred and sixty 
miles, from Omaha to Alameda, in the harbor of San Francisco, 
without fatigue to the traveller, in three days' time, or at the 
rate, including all stops and changes, of twenty-five miles per 
hour, and this too with sleeping cars on trains, whose dead 
weight exceeds a hundred and fifty tons, beside that of engine 
and tender, with cars which contain ample sleeping room for 
one hundred and forty passengers, and a restaurant and kitchen 
attached. Nor do I entertain any doubt that by the coming 
spring the roads might be run over by a light express train, as 
heavy as those between London and Liverpool, in two days, 
were it advisable to make such dispatch. 

Connecting Lines. 
The several lines running east from the Union Pacific to 
Chicago, have good curves and few changes of level ; they re- 



72 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

quire but little gravel and some new iron to enable trains to 
run regularly, in two days' time, between Omaha and the Atlan- 
tic cities of Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Montreal. 

Cost of Running. 

This depends chiefly on a few elements — the cost of fuel, ties, 
iron and wages. On the Pacific lines nature has been very ben- 
eficent. The coal at Carbon and Evanston, lies in close conti- 
guity to the line, at the height of seven thousand feet above the 
sea, and about half way between Omaha and Sacramento ; while 
wood abounds on the Sierra Nevada. 

As Respects Road Repairs. 

For seven-eights of the distance the climate is dry, and wood 
is enduring, and, in the language of the late James Hayward, 
" water is the great enemy of railways." On the Sierra and 
the Truckee river ties may be had at low prices. They are 
floated down the North Platte River, and will probably be de- 
livered next year at Columbus, ninety-two miles west of Omaha> 
at the rate of sixty to seventy cents per tie. 

When the road is finished with iron superstructures for its 
bridges, and sufficient ballast, five men can easily keep eight 
miles at grade. 

As respects iron, a rolling mill may be placed at Carbon, and 
the defective rails sent through the rolls ; and any new iron 
required is to be found near the railway, in the shape of mag- 
netic iron ore. 

Chinese track-men, quiet, docile and industrious, may be had 
for less than Eastern rates, or at thirty-five dollars per month. 
At these rates, and with eight trains running in each direction, 
by which the cost will be distributed, the cost of repairs will 
fall lightly, on each train mile. Until the line is finished and 
furnished with suitable bridges, and coal substituted for wood, 
the cost of repairs per train mile will be in excess, but will 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 73 

fiiniish no fair standard for tlic cost of running. Were we to 
measure the cost of fuel by the cost of wood, provided with 
undue haste for the extension of the line, and apply the pres- 
ent cost of keeping up the track, and of constructing perisiiable 
bridges in a dry climate, to two or three trains each way, we 
might possibly add a third to the necessary cost of running 
these Pacific railways. 

But the advent of coal reduces the cost of fuel to ten or 
twelve cents per mile ; the completion of track and bridges will 
reduce two-thirds the cost of road repairs for each mile run, and 
it is safe to predict tliat under judicious management the trains 
may be run eventually as cheaply as the trains on the Illinois 
Central line, or for less than one dollar and ten. cents per mile. 

Cost of running on the Union Pacific. 

The combination of favorable gradients with the possession 
of coal, the light fall of rain and snow, both of which are not 
equivalent to more than twelve inches of rain annually,. con- 
spire to lighten the cost of running on the Union Pacific, and 
that cost must fall with the increase of trains. 

Cost on the Central Pacific. 

This will probably exceed that on the Union, in consequence 
of higher gradients and the absence of coal, but the local 
business of the Central Pacific furnishes a compensation. 

Comparative Condition of the Two Lines. 
Union Pacific. 
This line has a good alignment, bold curves and favorable 
gradients. The coal is found on it, and the most western mine 
is seventy miles east of Ogden. 

Connecting with numerous lines, it has many feeders and 
some decided advantages over the Kansas Pacific, from greater 

10 



74 The Overland Route to the Facijic. 

facilities for reaching the lumber region and the navigable 

waters of the lakes. . • 

According to my best judgment, tlwee millions of dollars, or 
a - milti ou less than it claims from the Central Pacific, will 
complete its bridges, ballast its line, complete its stations 
and make it one of the best, if not the best line, west of the 
Mississippi. 

Central Pacific. 

This line makes a favorable impression upon the traveller. 
Its road-bed is wide, it is well ballasted, its rail is in excellent 
condition, its equipage abundant. A few hundred thousand 
dollars will complete its surfacing and stations. It is possible 
that it might have avoided some undulations in its line, and 
have saved a few miles' distance, but there are few lines on 
which some improvements may not be made. 

When the business of this line is more fully developed, and 
trains now light become heavy and shall be taken at low com- 
peting rates, policy will suggest some modifications of the route, 
but when we balance the cost of change and the interest on 
cost against advantages, changes that may be desirable in the 
future, may well be deferred. 

As respects ties, the line has great resources in the lumber of 
the Sierra Nevada. It can command Chinese labor and resort to 
the rolling mills of San Francisco, for the renewal of its rails. 

lu the Sierra Nevada it will doubtless be its policy to intro- 
duce sections of iron into its snow-sheds, and at an early day 
to replace its trestle bridges with iron. 

Equipage op the Pacific Lines. 
Union Pacific. 
The equipage of this line, as reported to us at Omaha, con- 
sists of one hundred and sixty engines, eighty passenger, mail 
and baggage cars, besides twenty Pullman cars, in which the 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 75 

Hue has an interest, and three thousand freight and gravel 
cars, some of which are now let for $11,000 monthly. 

Central Pacific. 

The equipage of this line, as reported by the officials, con- 
sists of one hundred and sixty-six engines and twenty-four en- 
gines ordered and in progress, one hundred and twenty-six 
passenger cars, twenty-four baggage and express cars, two 
thousand one hundred and seventy-four freight cars and ninety- 
five gravel cars. 

The engines and cars are reported to be generally efficient 
and in good condition on both lines. Here is equipage suf- 
ficient to run eight trains daily in each direction, and less than 
three are now run. From the nature of the business, many of 
the trains must be fast trains, requiring few cars, and for the 
present the lines are apparently overstocked, and have made a 
more liberal provision of rolling stock than any American 
line I know of has made at the outset. Should the stock now 
on hand be all required, it would earn sufficient beyond inter- 
est on the capital and debt to pay for large additions, and I 
cannot see any reason for providing additional equipage, unless 
it be some more sleeping cars, and cars suitable for fish and 
fruit, and a few more snow-ploughs. Both lines, with respect 
to equipage, are first-class railways. 

Provisions against Snow. 
The experience of the Central Railway for several winters, 
while constructing the line over the Sierra Nevada, has led it 
to make liberal provisions of snow-sheds and safeguards against 
avalanches. The Union Pacific, with less snow on its line, is 
obliged to guard against a dry, drifting snow, which last winter 
gave it much annoyance, and for more than three weeks 
delayed its trains. To guard against such delays, it is of the 
highest importance that several cuts should be widened, several 



76 The Overland Route to the Pacijic. 

miles of snow-sheds thrown over cuts, and several snow-fences 
be erected. Materials for these have been collected, and plans 
made by General Dodge, who awaits orders. It is to be hoped 
that this work, in which the whole country is interested, will be 
at once completed. 

Importance of Completing the Lines at once. 

I am deeply impressed with the importance of completing 
both lines, as nearly as possible, the present autumn. If the 
work is done now, and charged at once to construction, it will 
have the best effect upon future net income. It will reduce 
the cost of road repairs, prevent the diversion of revenue into 
construction, to the injury of credit ; it will prevent the possible 
loss of one or two millions of income by snow during the 
winter, and in all respects conduce to the interest and reputa- 
tation of the line. 

The question at Promontory should be adjusted by agree- 
ment or reference. Ogden, or some point between Ogden and 
Corinne, is the true point for a junction, in accordance with 
the agreement of the parties. 

Any branch to Montana or Oregon would, in the opinion of 
General Dodge, diverge at Granger, not Corinne, and ties and 
lumber floating down the Bear River may be easily taken from 
the river to a point near Ogden, by the lake. 

While this question remains open, trains are delayed and 
passengers are incommoded, and each line may harm the other 
by unfriendly action. 

This question, which springs from the energy and rivalry of 
each line, should be settled, and proper stations and water- 
works erected at the point of junction. 

Cost of Construction. 

I am satisfied by my inquiries and observation, that the cost of 
the Union Pacific line has been greatly uuderrated by the public. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 77 

It is true that many sections of the railway arc built on light 
embankments, across plains nearly level, but surveys have been 
expensive ; there has been heavy work on tlie mountains and 
costly bridging and masonry and costly renewals of masonry. 
Large stations and long turnouts have been finished and a large 
and costly equipage provided. Bonds have been sold at a dis- 
count, transportation of materials has been costly and wages and 
provisions have been dear in the wilderness. 

According to my best judgment, the loan from government 
will not more than suffice to cover the necessary cost of surveys, 
graduation, bridging and masonry, including the now work for 
bridges yet incomplete, the discount on bonds and the interest 
which has accumulated. 

Nor will the money realized from the mortgage bonds, in my 
opinion, meet the cash cost of the superstructure, stations and 
equipage which must, with the transportation of the iron, exceed 
130,000 a mile. 

A part of the cost and of the amount paid in profits to con- 
tractors, must be drawn from the stock and land grant bonds. 

Much of the iron on this line has probably cost $140 per ton in 
prime cost and transportation before it reached the track. Many 
of the ties have cost more than a dollar each on the track. 
Twenty thousand dollars a mile is a moderate estimate for the 
cost of track with turnouts, and ten thousand will be too low 
for stations and equipage, interest, discounts and general ex- 
penses, when the line is equipped. The officers of the line ex- 
pect to meet the floating debt and finish the line, with their 
surplus property and claims.* 

On the Central Pacific the stock is held by a few individuals, 
and it is supposed the government loan and an equal amount of 
mortgage bonds, less than fifty millions, together will nearly 
suffice to complete and equip the line of 700 miles from Ogden 
to Saciameuto. What are the prospects of a return upon these 
investments ? 

* See Appendix. 



78 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

Income. 

The tracks of the two companies were connected at Promon- 
tory, on the tent4i of May, and in May, June and July, 1869, 
passengers, mails, baggage, express and freight were transferred, 
and the revenue of each company for the three months was about 
two millions of dollars, drawn in great part from local business. 

In August, the fast freight cars were sent through, but the 
through business thus far, has been chiefly experimental. By 
the tables, however, annexed to this Report, it will appear, that 
while the contractors' freight has diminished, the regular busi- 
ness of the line is steadily increasing, and is done at high rates 
with few trains. 

The precise cost of doing the business cannot yet be defined, 
as the trains are run partly with wood and partly with cheap 
coal, and the officials and trackmen are engaged in completing 
the line ; but if we estimate it at a dollar and forty cents a mile, 
in paper, which must greatly exceed the future cost, and assume 
that three trains are run daily, the running expenses of the 
Union Pacific for May, June and July, would not exceed 
$900,000, and leave sufficient to cover interest on all its loans 
for that period. 

Earnings prior to Completion. 

It would be politic for the line to charge interest to capital, 
until completion, and carry its net income drawn from un- 
finished sections to a reserve fund, to meet future casualities 
and deficiencies. 

It will be its policy, also, to develop its business, now barely 
begun, as fast as possible, for the line is now ready for a much 
larger traffic than the present. It has barely touched its new 
sources of business. 

Earnings op the Central Pacific. 
This line already earns, from a track less in length than that 
of the Union Pacific, a gross revenue as large or larger than 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 79 

that of the Union Pacific. It is drawn in great part from local 
business. 

As, however, the gradients are heavier, and coal will cost 
more on this line than on the other, the cost of transportation 
will somewhat exceed that of the Union Pacific ; and as the 
through business increases, its returns to each line will be pro- 
portioned to its length, and we may expect a large accession to 
the population of the plains. 

Future Sources of Business. 

Fruit and fish should furnish a very important traffic to these 
lines ; if tlie business is properly developed and proper facilities 
given, California, with fast trains and an exuberance of fruit, 
can furnish the Atlantic cities with choice pears, plums, apri- 
cots, melons and many vegetables earlier than they can be pro- 
duced in the Atlantic States, and grapes that will not grow 
there except under glass. 

Trains of ten or twelve cars, with fruit, emigrants and second- 
class passengers, should be sent through at a speed of twenty 
miles an hour. At six cents per pound, to all points beyond 
the Mississippi, such trains might earn four dollars per train 
mile and pay large profits, returning with merchandise at slow 
rates of speed. 

Halibut, salmon and shell-fish might be sent at the same 
rates, with great profit, and butter, cheese, lard, lard-oil and 
hams, from the West, be taken as return freights. 

But there are other and more important sources of profit. 
Tea, coffee, sugar, silk and spices. Most of these commodities 
can be landed at less prices on the Pacific coast than they can 
be on the Atlantic. For instance, fifty million pounds of tea 
are sent from China and Japan to New York and Boston, for 
fifteen dollars per measurement ton ; but if we add to this the 
interest and insurance, and other charges, the cost of the tran- 
sit is about six cents per pound in currency. 



80 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

A fair freight by ships from Shanghai to San Francisco would 
be but five dollars per measurement ton, and as the distance is 
little more than one-third of that to New York, tea might be 
laid down in the port of San Francisco for less than two and a 
half cents per pound, which would give San Francisco an ad- 
vantage of more than three cents over New York. At a freight 
of two and a half cents a pound, by railway, it would not only 
reach New York, but might go through to Europe and the Brit- 
ish Provinces.* 

As respects sugar, coffee, spices and Manilla grass, the in- 
portations of the United States now approach a million of 
tons, and these articles from Asia, the Asiatic and the Sandwich 
Isles, can be landed in San Francisco at less cost than at New 
York, if we take into account the fact that silver and flour can 
be best shipped from San Francisco in payment. 

With this advantage, and a freight of two and a half cents 
per pound, the imports from San Francisco would meet those 
from New York in the basin of the Mississippi, and the Pacific 
lines might well compete with the lines from the Atlantic, and 
reasonably expect to attract capital to California, and to carry 
one-third of these imports. 

Again, these Pacific lines might attract several thousand tons 
of raw silk from China, and shoes and dry goods from the East, at 
very high prices, and carry wool and wine at third-class rates. 
Already the Isthmus line is transporting hides, wool and other 
California freight to New York, at 1^ cents per pound in gold, 
and if we add to this the premium on gold, insurance and 
interest, we bring the rate to 2] cents per pound. It is unques- 
tionably the policy of the Pacific railways to induce the owners 
of the line via the Isthmus to transfer two-thirds of their steam- 
ers from Aspinwall and Panama, to the China line. Such a 
change, and it is already foreshadowed by the withdrawal of a 
monthly steamer from the Isthmus route, would add at least 
three millions to the income of the railways. 

* See Appendix. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 81 

It may be urged that 2^- cents per pound, or |50 per ton, 
would not pay, but the propellers and great lines to Chicago 
carry their fourth-class freight one-third of that distance for $7 
to $10 per ton, or at half the rate per mile here proposed. It 
will be an object to them to encourage this traffic, and I do not 
hesitate to recommend to the Pacific lines to send freight to all 
points east of the Mississippi for the following rates : Six cents 
per pound for first-class fast freight ; five cents per pound for 
general merchandise ; two and a half cents for third-class, to 
include domestic goods and groceries. 

Tariff. 
It is of the greatest importance that the rates should at once 
be fixed, and that publicity be given to them. It may be that 
at somewhat higher rates of freight than those suggested, some 
business may be done with the interior, but it appears to me that 
the rates I have recommended will develop a great traffic ; 
will compete with the Isthmus line, divert its steamers to the 
China line, and meet the expectations of the country. I would 
also, without disturbing the local rates, or rates for emigrants, 
recommend the directors to consider the policy of reducing the 
rates on first-class passengers and of establishing second-class 
rates, and restaurants on the line, where the common articles 
of food may be had at moderate prices. At present the steam- 
ers via the Isthfnus furnish food and lodging for their passen- 
gers of all classes, which are not furnished by the railways. 

Propellers to China. 
It seems to me very desirable, also, to secure the establish- 
ment of a line of propellers between San Francisco and China. 
They will find a profitable trade in tea, sugar, rice, silk, spices, 
and in Chinese emigrants, going and returning. In flour and 
rice and domestics, they may often make good freights, and 
may also make a percentage on silver. 
11 



82 The Overland Route to the Pacljic. 

Steamers are now built on the Clyde, which carry a thousand 
tons of freight, with an expenditure of but ten tons of coal in 
twenty-four hours on the rough billows of the Atlantic. 

The present line to China, giving but one steamer a month, 
and charging #15 per measurement ton for tea, and running in 
connection with the Isthmus line, does not meet at all the 
requirements of the railways. 

Chinese. 

These Asiatics have made themselves very acceptable in Cal- 
ifornia, to all but those classes of foreigners whose labor they 
compete with. They will be of great value to the capitalists 
who would build railways or open copper mines, or extend the 
garden cultivation of California, and very useful on the South- 
ern plantations. It is estimated in London that ten thousand a 
month might be easily induced to emigrate from China. They 
are content with little, and in five years might accumulate 
sufficient to take them back and make them happy in their 
native land. Such a stream of travel, coming and returning, 
would enrich the railways, and deserves every encouragement. 

Express. 

I learn with great satisfaction that both railways have agreed 
to pursue a course I have long advocated, viz., .to take the ex- 
press business into their own hands. I found several instances 
at points on the route to the Atlantic, where dealers desired to 
order fruit from California, but were deterred by the express 
charges of twenty to twenty-four cents per pound. I found, 
too, the express company took, in my own case, six days to do 
what could easily have been done in two. Such charges and 
such neglect would be disastrous to the fruit trade, and check 
the progress of the railways, and will, it is hoped, soon be 
ended. 



The Ooerhmd Route to the Pacific. 83 

The specie alone, passing over these lines, should pay the 
two railways sixty thousand dollars a month. 

Telegraph. 

Another source of income is the telegraph. The two rail- 
ways now hold a telegraph line with two wires, by which they 
guide their operations, but from which they derive no income, 
and I am informed that the "Western Union Company earns more 
than thirty thousand dollars a month from their parallel line to 
the Atlantic States, at charges of -$6 to |7 for a single message. 

Competition may reduce prices, but will stimulate business, 
and there is little doubt that the railways, as trade qviickens, 
may draw from this source a revenue of fifteen to twenty thou- 
sand dollars a month. 

Value op Land. 

The Union Pacific line holds a large body of land, granted 
by the government to encourage the enterprise. The land 
agent, Mr. Davis, after making allowance for prior sales, pre- 
emptions and Indian reservations, estimates this grant to cover 
twelve million of acres, and it seems to me rates it low at a 
dollar and a half per acre, as it lies within the average distance 
of ten miles from the railway. 

For two hundred miles from Omaha, the land is very fertile 
and well adapted to agriculture ; beyond this is a district ap- 
parently designed for stock farms, in most of which cattle and 
sheep winter in the open air. A large portion of the more 
remote lands show indications of alkali, and for many miles 
coal shows itself ; while iron ore of good quality is found in 
considerable quantities. 

The Alkali Country. 
In the vast territories of Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, 
crossed by the Pacific railways, the traveller notices large areas 



84 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

covered with sage bush and brown grasses, and often with an 
efflorescence or crust, resembling the ice cakes on salt marshes. 
This is the alkali country, and here one often finds no pure 
water or food for man or beast, and comes to the conclusion 
that the country is a waste, and doomed to perpetual sterility. 

Meanwhile the Mormon and the Californian have opened 
wheat fields, orchards and vineyards in lands containing alkali 
in greater or less degrees, and by artificial or natural irrigation 
have converted the waste into a garden. 

Is it safe to pronounce such a country sterile and irre- 
claimable ? The brown grasses nourished the elk and the 
buffalo. 

A careful analysis of the alkali of the plains resolves it into 
salt, soda, potash, lime and magnesia; most of the salts it con- 
tains are conducive to fertility, and they are combined with 
ammonia and carbonic acid, both essential to the growth of 
vegetation. 

Liebig, the great chemist of Europe, in his " Treatise on 
Chemistry applied to Agriculture," reports each of these salts 
as essential to fertile soils, and sterility is due to their absence. 

He finds them diminishing in the ashes of the tobacco plant 
as the soil becomes exhausted ; he traces them in the ashes of 
the wheat, barley and oat plant, in diminishing proportions, as 
we descend from wheat to oats. 

He discovers them as the components of the ashes of horse 
manure and of guano, and finds them most abundant in the 
ashes of trees with deciduous leaves. 

Here, then, we have in the alkali the great agents of fertility, 
sufficient not only to fertilize the soil they cover, but to enrich 
other districts, and to contribute to arts and maniifactures. 
Here is a field for the directing mind of America and for the 
patient industry of Asia in the coming centuries, in guiding the 
rill from snow-clad mountains to thirsty plains ; in lifting water 
by artesian wells or by windmills or engines from lake and 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 85 

river, and in applying it to animate nature, and to set in motion 
her elements of fertility. And nature will respond to the call 
of humanity. Each orchard planted will bring down showers 
from heaven and double the effects of man's exertions. 

I feel convinced the value of the alkali land is greatly under- 
rated, and that the estimate of Mr. Davis, which he tlnnks a 
low one, is very moderate. 

Land of the Central Pacific Railroad Company. 

The lands of this company differ from those of the Union 
Pacific. Instead of forming plains like those of the Platte, 
they commence near the foot-hills and rise rapidly on the sides 
of the Sierra, and then extend across basins encircled by moun- 
tains, and rise to an elevation of four to seven thousand feet 
above the sea. 

The portion on the Sierra is quite valuable for its pine timber ; 
the timber land differs from that of Maine, where a few pines 
are found in clusters among maple, birch and spruce trees. 
Here many large pines are found growing together, and the 
land is heavily timbered with trees fit for the saw-mill. 

The Central Pacific line has about eight million acres. Much 
of it is alkali land, much fit for pasturage. It probably would 
not sell at present for more than five millions, but may event- 
ually command a much higher price. 

Comparisons with other Lines. 

If we compare the cost of the Pacific lines with those of 
Massachusetts, we find the average cost for the last is -172,000 
per mile ; and if we deduct the inferior lines, we shall find some 
of the chief railways of the States have cost as much as the 
Pacific lines, and are at a high premium. 

The Illinois Central line, in some particulars, resembles the 
Pacific lines, although its cost is less. It received a land grant 
of 2,595,000 acres from the United States. It commenced 



86 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

running with a length of T08 miles in 1856. Its capital stock 
was then §3,258,015. Its debt, $19,811,724. Its equipage but 
91 engines and 1,690 cars. 



Its gross earnings in 1856 were 
Its running expenses. 

Its net income, 
Deducting State tax. 

The balance of income was but 



82,476,035 00 

1,444,546 00 

$1,031,489 00 

93,052 00 

$938,437 00 



But one-third of the line was entirely ballasted. 

From this feeble beginning it has advanced, until, in 1868, — 

Its stock has increased to ... . $25,277,270 00 

Its debt diminished to 9,377,500 00 

Its earnings, from Illinois lines, increased to . 6,797,930 00 

With all this success, its revenue is but $l/o^o per train mile, 
and its cost of running $1^1 o P*^^' ^^"^^'^ "^^'^^• 

The aggregate sales of its land to 1869 have been $22,122,830, 
with one-fourth of its land unsold. The receipts from land 
have nearly equalled the original cost of the line. 

The dividend has reached eighteen per cent., and in twelve 
years the revenue has tripled. In 1856 it was but four per 
•cent, on the cost of the line. The land unsold will pay the 
residue of its debt. The position of the Pacific lines, in several 
respects, is more favorable. Their rates are much higher, and 
their receipts per mile of road are much larger, at the com- 
pletion of their enterprise, than those of the Illinois Central 
Railway. 

If we compare the returns of the Pacific railways with those 
of the Grand Trunk line for 1867 and 1868, we find, on the 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 87 

Grand Trunk Railway, that its freight trains have averaged 17 
cars ; its passenger trains, 5 cars. Its cost of running has been, 
without coal, and with wood at $4.00 per cord, -^^^ of a cent 
per mile. Its average earnings per hundred miles, — from each 
passenger, $1.0G ; from each ton of freight, 86 cents. Expense 
of each passenger for 100 miles, 85 cents ; expense of each ton 
of freight, 65 cents. Net earnings per ton and per passenger for 
100 miles, 21 cents. Gross earnings of 1,377 miles, $7,000,000. 
These earnings, long subsequent to the opening of the line, 
are much below those of the Pacific lines, on which the net 
profit is much higher. 

Conclusion. 

The rates I have recommended are in currency, but they will 
gradually advance as the country returns to gold by the im- 
provement of the currency, and will meanwhile have devel- 
oped business. 

No one can visit California and observe the progress that 
country has made in the last ten years under a specie currency, 
in its agriculture, mines, manufactures, trade, banks, buildings 
and the value of property, without being impressed with the 
importance of an early return to a specie basis. 

Without it, what assurance have we that Messrs. Fisk and 
Gould may not again disturb values as they did last week in 
New York ? Why should Congress or our courts demoralize 
the country, now that the crisis has passed, by debasing our 
standard of values ? Why should thousands of men be diverted 
from agriculture and the mechanic arts to bet upon the price of 
gold and to get up false rumors ? The return to gold will 
minister to the prosperity of the Pacific railways. 

In this Report I have endeavored to do justice to both of the 
great lines to the Pacific, and cannot close it without com- 
mending the spirit and energy with which they have been driven 
to a successful consummation. 



88 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

In the last throe years a herculean feat has been accom- 
plished. In that brief period at least fifteen hundred miles of 
railway have been carried through the wilderness. If there has 
been a large expenditure incurred, we must not forget that 
seven years' interest on unproductive outlay has been avoided, 
and the march of improvement has been accelerated. 

I have also endeavored to give the distinctive features and 
merits of the Union and Central Pacific lines. 

If they are properly finished and managed, as I believe they 
will be, in the liberal spirit the country has a right to expect, I 
venture to foretell that they will requite the nation for its favors, 
meet the wishes of the public and the hopes of their stock- 
holders, and I predict for them a brilliant future. 

I have the honor to be, 

Very sincerely, 

E. H. DERBY. 



TJie Overland Route to the Pacific. 89 



APPENDIX. 



[No. 1.] 

While this report was in the hands of a copyist, I made a short 
excursion to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. While 
there I met a very intelligent man, who had resided for many years 
near the line of the Grand Trunk Railway in Northern New 
Hampshire, and he gave me the following exhibit of its condition : 

" Its road-bed is good and its bridges excellent and its engine- 
" men and firemen equal to any in the States. Its track between 
" Gorham and Portland for ninety miles has been renovated and 
" two-thirds of it laid with new iron. Last year the State authori- 
" ties restricted it to twelve miles an hour ; this year the passenger 
" trains run twenty-two miles the hour. From Gorham to Mon- 
" treal the track is single and requires renewal. How could it be 
" otherwise, when it sends twenty-four heavy trains daily over a 
" single track, and most of its iron has been down many years." 

"There have been many delays and accidents on this line of 
"late years. At one time several trains were off the track at once, 
" and the chief business of the county courts is to try suits for 
"damasres and detention against the Grand Trunk. It has been 
"the policy of the directors to discharge the Americans in the 
"management and to put on dispatch agents and other officials 
" who are foreigners and hold themselves aloof from the citizens on 
" the line. They are of course out of favor, and when men sue it, 
" the road suffers in damages and costs. 

" A few months since, the cars ran through a flock of sheep — 
" the owner would have settled for those killed, at two dollars each, 
" and the jury gave him twelve dollars a head. 

"A lawyer called on an official to ascertain Avhy his client's 
" freight was detained. He was ill-treated and brought a suit for 
12 



90 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

"the insult; before trial lie was appointed judge, and tlie jury 
" made the i-oad pay him four thousand dollars for the insult. 

"As respects wood, the line runs much of the way in Maine and 
"New Hampshire through forests, and wood is worth, for soft 
"wood but fifty cents and for hard wood but seventy-five cents per 
"cord, standing. It costs but 11.00 to have it cut by Canadians 
" and but 11.00 to $1.25 to have it hauled, so that it costs but $2.50 
" to 13.00 per cord, delivered on the line of the road. At this rate 
" any quantity desired could be purchased, but the road pays $4.00 
" to $4.50 per cord, and some one makes a profit. The road agent 
"instead of contracting in each township for the wood required 
"there, invites proposals for all the wood wanted on the whole 
" length in the United States. 

" Few can propose for so large an amount, and if they did, would 
"probably propose in vain. 

" As resj^ects revenue, the principal freight of the road is lumber. 
" Si^ruce boards have risen in the last ten years from $6.00 in gold 
"to $15.00 in paper, per thousand, at the mills. The freight, 
" formerly $3.00 a thousand in gold, is now $3.00 a thousand in 
" paper and might be increased, for the mills are making money. 
" One town sends to Portland some sixteen million feet of boards." 

These at $6.00 per thousand, would add $48,000 to the net in- 
come of the line and would pay for one or two hundred miles, 
better than flour at a dollar a barrel for a thousand miles from 
Toronto to Halifax. 

These representations must pass for what they are worth. To 
point out such evils is to suggest the remedy. 

It is not easy for Englishmen, in the opinion of my informant, to 
run the line successfully in the United States. With half a million 
sterling expended between Portland and Sarnia and American man- 
agers, east of Canada, the line would soon make returns. 

Last year, the crops on the line were deficient. This year the 
bountiful harvests will be of service to the line, which will now have 
an improved connection with Chicago, and should fonn one of the 
routes fi-om Euro])e, the Lower Provinces, Portl;md, Montreal and 
Boston to San Francisco, via the Union and Central Pacific Railways. 



The Overland Route to the Pac'fc. 



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The Ocerland Route to the Pacific. 



[No. 3.] 

October 12th, 1869. 

A letter from R. "W. Woodbury, Esq., Secretary of the Denver 
Board of Trade, apprises me that in 1868, 15,000 head of cattle 
were driven from Colorado across the mountains to California, 
after having been fattened in Colorado, where the grass is more 
nutritious than it is in New Mexico. 

The present value of cattle in Colorado is 3|- cents per pound on 
the hoof. About forty thousand head of cattle will be shipped 
either in beef or alive this autumn from Colorado to Chicago, over 
the Union Pacific line, and the rate paid for 500 miles on the 
Union Pacific, from Cheyenne to Omaha, will be $240 per carload. 

One man ships 20,000 head of slaughtered cattle. The freight 
on the Union Pacific line will be not far from $400,000 on the forty 
thousand head of cattle. 



[No. 4.] 

Michigan Central Railway. 
JBusiness in 1860 andin 1869. 





Gross Earnings. 


Tons Moved. 


Passengers. 


Net Becelpts. 


1860, . 
1869, . 


$1,832,945 00 
4,716,293 00 


295,276 
802,835 


324,421 

846,452 


$755,461 00 
1,829,349 00 



In 1860 the gross earnings were less than $7,000 per mile a year, 
or less per mile a week than those of the Pacific lines since their 
opening. The Michigan Central Railway was opened as early as 

1847. 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 93 

Its earnings per ton a mile were, in the year ending May 31, 
1869,— 

On tlirough freight, 1 /gV cts. 

On local freight, 3 -^^2^ 



Average, 2 yg^j cts. 

The president of this successful company, JVfr. Joy, remarks, in 
his rejiort : — 

" In view of the rapid development of the country, and espec- 
" ially of the progressive and rapid settlement of the West, and 
" vast increase of its productions, depending upon cheap transpor- 
" tation for their value, the great aim of railway companies should 
" be to so perfect their roads and appointments as to transact the 
" immense business of the country at the least possible expense, 
" and rely upon the volume of business to be done at reasonable 
" rates, rather than upon smaller amounts, with higher charges. 

" The reduction of through jaassenger fares during the past year 
"has been one-fifth, and perhaps that of the rates of through 
" freight has been nearly in proportion." 



[No. 5.] 

National Loaist. 
The Act establishing the Union Pacific Railway Company, (Acts 
of 1862, chapter 120, section 5,) provides that the six per cent, 
bonds issued in aid of the same, shall be payable thirty years after 
date; and, "that to secure the repayment to the. United States, as 
" thereinafter provided, of the amount of said bonds, so issued and 
"delivered to said company, together with all interest thereon which 
" shall have been paid by the United States, the issue of said bonds 
"and delivery to the company shall, ipso facto, constitute a first 
" mortgage on the whole line of the railroad and telegraph, together 
" with the rolling stock, fixtures and property, of every kind and 



94 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

" description, and in consideration of which, said bonds may be 
"issued, and on the refusal or fliihire of said company to redeem said 
"bonds, or any part of them when required so to do by the Secre- 
"tary of the Treasury, in accordance with the provisions of this act, 
" the said road, with all the rights, functions, immunities and appur- 
"tenances thereto belonging, and also all lands granted to said com- 
"pany by the United States, which at the time of said default shall 
"remain in the ownership of said company, may be taken possession 
"of by the Secretary of the Treasury for the use and benefit of the 
"United States." 

Section 6 of the same Act provides "that the grants to said com- 
"pany are made upon condition that said company shall pay said 
" bonds at maturity, and shall keep the line in repair and transmit 
" mails, troops, stores and munitions for the government at all times, 
"giving them the 2:)reference, at fair and reasonable rates, and that 
" all compensation for services rendered to the government shall be 
" applied to the payment of said bonds and interest until the whole 
"is paid, and that after the railroad is finished five per cent, of its 
"net income, in addition, shall be applied to the reduction of inter- 
"est and principal of the loan of the United States." 

By section 5, chapter 216 of the Acts of the United States for 
1864, it is provided that "but one-half of the compensation for ser- 
" vices shall be applied towards the payment of the principal and 
"interest of said government bonds." 

By section 10 of the Act last named, precedence is given to the 
mortgage bonds of the company over the mortgage to the United 
States for an amount equal to the amount of government bonds. 

It is furtlier provided by said Acts, that the companies building 
said roads may unite and form one company ; and by chapter 88 of 
Acts of 1865, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad Cos. 
arc empowered to make the interest on these bonds for thirty 
years, payable in any lawful cun-ency of the United States. 

It would appear from these provisions that the United States 
have, by their Acts in aid, given precedence to the first mortgage 
bonds of the company, over those issued by the United States, and 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 95 

that the latter are to be paid at maturity, and if they are not then 
paid, with all interest accrued, the United States may enter upon 
the property, and that two provisions are made for the payment of 
interest, viz., by an appropriation of one-half the amount required 
for services rendered to the United States, and five per cent, of the 
net income of the company, after the railway is completed. 

In case these should not suffice to meet the interest, the Acts 
appear to contain no express pi-ovision for an entry for non-payment 
of interest until the bonds mature. 

The Acts seem carefully drawn to protect the company in its 
infancy, and the United States, which by this railway reduces the 
cost of transportation of ti'oops, stores and mails across the plains, 
more than eighty per cent,, can well afford to continue their 
liberality and to wait for a part of their interest. 

As population becomes more dense on the line, the services 
required by the government, and the net income of the company, 
will increase, and with it the proceeds of the percentage Avill gi'ow 
also. When the net income exceeds ten per cent., the United 
States, under the provisions of the Acts, may again intervene, and 
reduce the tariff. 



[No. 6.] 

October Tth, 1869. 

One of the principal dealers in tea in Boston informs me that the 
Souchong tea, which forms the principal part of the tea imported 
into the United States, comes in chests Avhich measure five cubic 
feet, eight of which constitute a measurement ton. These chests 
weigh 115 pounds each, including the tea. The tare or weiglit of 
the chest is rated by the trade at 25 pounds to the chest, and the 
net weight of the tea is 90 pounds, or 720 pounds of tea to the 
measurement ton. At the customary freight of $16 per measure- 
ment ton from Shanghai to Boston, the cost would be 2-i-q2_ cents 
per pound. 

To this we must add for interest and insurance five per cent., 
and for commissions and discount on bills of exchange three per 



96 The Overland Route to the Pacific. 

cent., which last item may possibly be saved by the remittance of 
silver from San Francisco, which derives a supply of at least ten 
millions of silver yearly from the mines of Nevada. 

Assuming the average cost of tea at 28 cents a pound in China, 
the interest, insurance and discount, viz., 8 per cent., would amount 
to 2-^2^*0 cents ; and if we add this to the freight, the aggregate cost 
would amount to 4f cents fi'om Shanghai to Boston in gold ; and if 
we add a third to convert this into currency, the entire cost of the 
importation in currency is Q^^^ cents per pound. 

The freight and charges by sailing vessel to San Francisco on the 
Pacific for two-fifths of the distance from Shanghai to Boston 
should not exceed three cents a pound ; and thus San Francisco 
will be able to compete for the trade from China to the Atlantic 
ports, if the charge by railway does not exceed two and a half cents 
per pound, and the tea is transferred from the ship to the car with- 
out injury. 



[No. 7.] 

A neio Fastening or Substitute for Chairs and Fish-Joints. 

Since my return, I have recently examined a, new fastening for 
the joints of rails, which has been adopted and improved on the 
Fitchburg and Boston and Providence Railways, which gives great 
satisfaction, and is found to be altogether superior to the common 
fish-joint. 

On these railways, chairs are now dispensed with, and the X I'^^i^ 
with a flat base, is so laid, that the joint is suspended between two 
ties or sleepers, two feet apart, measuring from centre to centre. 
Under the joint is placed a shoe, two feet long, of half-inch wrought 
iron, an inch or more wider than the base of the rail, with half an 
inch or more turned up on. each side. 

This shoe is perforated by two holes on each side, through which 
four bolts are driven into the ties. Above tlie joint, resting on the 
top of the base of the rails, two small plates of iron arc placed, one 
on each side of the rails, which arc connected by a bolt, in the shape 



The Overland Route to the Pacific. 97 

of the letter U, which passes throngli the phites and through cres- 
cents in the rails, one head coming up on each side, and the plates 
are screwed down with head-screws, to hold the bottom of the rail 
in place. 

Some of these fastenings have been in use for years, and the sub- 
stitution of them for chairs and fish-plates is thought to add a third 
to the life of the tie. 

Mr. Stearns, of the Fitchburg line, has also increased the strength 
and durability of his rails by raising their height half an inch, 
without increasing their weight. 



[No. 8.] 

October 22, 1869. 

While revising the proof of this Report, I learn from the office of 
the Union Pacific that a new weekly train, with Pullman cars and 
a hotel car attached, commenced this week to run between Omaha 
and San Francisco, and will make the trip in eighty-one hotirs, stop- 
ping for wood and water only. Passengers desirous to take this 
train may engage their berths by telegram, and travel by any route 
to Omaha, stopping or not on the way. They may thus pass a day 
or two at any of the cities between the seaboard and the Union 
Pacific, or go through in about fifty hours to Omaha. I am also 
apprised that the earnings of the Union Pacific continue to grow, 
and were, for the first fifteen days of October, $412,024.53, or at the 
rate of ten million dollars per annum for one thousand and ninety- 
one miles. There is reason to hope the expenses may fall below 
forty per cent,, as the business is done with few trains and at 
remunerative rates. 
13 



The Overland Route 
TO THE Pacific. 



By E. H. derby. 



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